..  ,  ......  .     _,   —  n 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 

LETTERS  FROM 

CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


BY 
JOHN  DEWEY,  Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

PBOJISSOB  o»  PHILOSOPHY  IN   COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY 
AND 

ALICE  CHIPMAN  DEWEY 

Edited  by 
EVELYN  DEWEY 


NEW  YORK 
E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 

681  FIFTH  AVENUE 


52294 


4  9  < 


Copyright,  1920, 
By  E.  P.  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 

All  Right*  Restrted 


Printtd  in  tkt  United  Siotti  of  Amtric* 


PREFACE 

John  Dewey,  Professor  of  Philosophy  in 
Columbia  University,  and  his  wife,  Alice  C. 
S     Dewey,  who  wrote  the  letters  reproduced  in 
this  book,  left  the  United  States  early  in 
1919  for  a  trip  to  Japan.     The  trip  was 
eagerly  embarked  on,  as  they  had  desired 
for  many  years  to  see  at  least  something  of 
the  Eastern  Hemisphere.    The  journey  was 
to  be  solely  for  pleasure,  but  just  before 
their  departure  from  San  Francisco,  Pro- 
3    fessor  Dewey  was  invited,  by  cable,  to  lec- 
j    ture  at  the  Imperial  University  at  Tokyo, 
and  later  at  a  number  of  other  points  in  the 
Japanese    Empire.      They    traveled    and 
visited  in  Japan  for  some  three  to  four 
months  and  in  May,  after  a  most  happy  ex- 
£   perience,  made  doubly  so,  by  the  unexpected 
courtesies  extended  them,  they  decided  to 
go  on  to  China,  at  least  for  a  few  weeks, 
before  returning  to  the  United  States. 


vi  PREFACE 

The  fascination  of  the  struggle  going  on 
in  China  for  a  unified  and  independent 
democracy  caused  them  to  alter  their  plan 
to  return  to  the  United  States  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1919.  Professor  Dewey  applied  to 
Columbia  University  for  a  year's  leave  of 
absence,  which  was  granted,  and  with  Mrs. 
Dewey,  is  still  in  China.  Both  are  lecturing 
and  conferring,  endeavoring  to  take  some 
of  the  story  of  a  Western  Democracy  to  an 
Ancient  Empire,  and  in  turn  are  enjoying 
an  experience,  which,  as  the  letters  indicate, 
they  value  as  a  great  enrichment  of  their 
own  lives.  The  letters  were  written  to  their 
children  in  America,  without  thought  of 
their  ever  appearing  in  print. 

EVELYN  DEWEY. 

NEW  YORK, 
January  5th,  1920. 


LETTERS  FROM 
CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


LETTERS 
FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


TOKYO,  Monday,  February. 

Well,  if  you  want  to  see  one  mammoth, 
muddy  masquerade  just  see  Tokyo  to-day. 
I  am  so  amused  all  the  time  that  if  I  were 
to  do  just  as  I  feel,  I  should  sit  down  or 
stand  up  and  call  out,  as  it  were,  from 
the  housetops  to  every  one  in  the  world  to 
come  and  see  the  show.  If  it  were  not  for 
the  cut  of  them  I  should  think  that  all  the 
cast-off  clothing  had  been  misdirected  and 
had  gone  to  Japan  instead  of  Belgium. 
But  they  are  mostly  as  queer  in  cut  as  they 
are  in  material.  Imagine  rummaging  your 
attic  for  the  colors  and  patterns  of  past 


2     LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

days  and  then  gathering  up  kimonos  of  all 
the  different  colors  and  patterns  and  sizes 
and  with  it  all  a  lot  of  men's  hats  that  are 
like  nothing  you  ever  saw,  and  very  muddy 
streets,  and  there  you  have  it.  The  'rick- 
sha men  have  their  legs  fitted  with  tight 
trousers  and  puttees  to  end  them,  and  they 
are  graceful.  They  run  all  day  through 
the  mud  and  snow  and  wet  in  these  things 
made  of  cotton  cloth  that  are  neither  stock- 
ings nor  shoes  but  both,  and  they  stand 
about  or  sit  on  steps  and  wait,  and  yet  they 
get  through  the  day  alive.  I  am  distracted 
between  the  desire  to  ride  in  the  baby  cart 
and  the  fear  of  the  language,  mixed  with 
the  greater  fear  of  the  pain  of  being  drawn 
by  a  fellow-being.  They  are  a  lithe  set  of 
little  men  and  look  as  if  they  had  steel 
springs  to  make  them  go  when  you  look  at 
their  course.  Still  I  have  been  only  in 
autos,  of  which  there  are  not  many  here.  I 
get  tired  with  the  excitement  of  the  con- 
stant amusement.  This  morning  a  man 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN     3 

came  out  of  a  curio  shop.  Bow.  "Ex- 
guse  me,  madame,  is  this  not  Mrs.  Daway? 
I  knew  you  because  I  saw  your  picture  in 
the  paper.  Will  you  not  come  in  and  look 
at  our  many  curios?  I  shall  have  the 
pleasure  of  bringing  them  to  your  hotel. 
What  is  the  number  of  your  room, 
madame?"  Bow.  "No,  please  do»not  bring 
them  to  my  room,  for  I  am  always  out.  I 
will  come  in  and  see  them  sometime." 
"Thank  you,  madame,  please  do  so, 
madame,  we  have  many  fine  curios."  Bow. 
"Good-morning,  madame." 

The  looks  of  the  streets  are  like  the 
clothes,  just  left  over  from  the  past  ages. 
Of  course  Tokyo  is  the  modern  city  of 
Japan,  and  we  shall  watch  out  for  the  an- 
cient ones  when  it  comes  their  turn.  I  wish 
I  could  give  you  an  idea  of  the  looks  of 
the  poor.  The  children  up  to  the  age  of 
about  thirteen  appear  never  to  wipe  their 
noses.  Combine  this  effect  (more  effect 
than  in  Italy)  with  several  kimonos,  one  on 


4     LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

top  of  the  other,  made  of  cotton  and  wool 
of  bright  colors  and  flowered,  with  a  queer 
brown  checked  one  on  top;  this  wadded  and 
much  too  big,  therefore  hitched  up  round 
the  waist.  Swung  in  this  outside  one  a  baby 
is  carried  on  the  back,  the  little  baby  head 
with  black  bangs  or  still  fuzzy  scalp  stick- 
ing out,  nose  never  yet  touched  by  a  hand- 
kerchief, wearer  of  the  baby  with  a  nose 
in  the  same  condition  if  at  a  tender  age — 
I  scream  inside  of  me  as  I  go  about, 
and  it  is  more  exciting  than  any  play  ever. 
We  are  as  much  curiosities  to  them  as  they 
are  to  us,  though  AVC  live  where  the  most 
foreigners  go.  Now  on  top  of  it  all  we  can 
no  more  make  a  car  driver  understand 
where  we  want  to  go  than  if  we  were 
monkeySi  We  can't  find  any  names  on  the 
streets,  we  can't  read  a  sign  except  the  few 
that  are  in  English ;  the  streets  wind  in  any 
and  every  direction ;  they  are  long  and  short 
and  circular,  while  a  big  canal  circles 
through  the  part  of  the  city  where  we  are 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN     5 

and  we  seem  to  cross  it  every  few  minutes; 
every  time  we  cross  it  we  think  we  are  going 
in  the  same  direction  as  the  last  time  we 
crossed  it.  About  this  stage  of  our  search 
your  father  goes  up  to  a  young  fellow  with 
an  ulster  on,  and  capes,  and  a  felt  hat  that 
is  like  a  fedora  except  for  a  few  inches  taken 
out  of  its  height,  and  says  to  him,  Tei-ko-ku 
Hotel,  which  would  mean  the  Imperial 
Hotel  if  he  had  pronounced  it  right,  and  the 
boy  turns  around  and  says,  "Do  you  want 
ze  Imperialee  Hoter?"  And  we  say,  "Yes" 
(you  bet),  and  the  fellow  says,  "Eet  is  ze 
Leeg  building  down  zere,"  so  we  wade 
along  some  more  with  all  the  clog  walkers 
looking  at  our  feet  till  we  come  to  this  old 
barn  of  a  place  where  we  are  paying  as 
much  as  at  a  Fifth  Avenue  hotel,  and  get 
clear  soup  for  dinner.  Just  like  any  one 
of  those  old-fashioned  French  places  where 
they  measure  out  with  care  all  they  give  you, 
and  where  the  head  is  a  most  distinguished 
and  conspicuous  jack-in-the-box  who  jacks 


6     LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

at  you  all  the  time,  bows  every  time  you 
go  down  the  hall  and  all  and  all  and  all. 
It  is  all  so  screamingly  funny.  The  shops 
are  nearly  as  big  as  our  bedrooms  at  home 
with  enough  space  to  step  in  and  leave  your 
shoes  before  you  mount  the  takenomo  and 
walk  on  the  mats.  We  could  not  go  into 
any  shop,  except  the  foreign  book  stores, 
because  we  were  too  dirty  and  had  no  time 
to  unlace  our  shoes  even  if  we  wanted  to 
wear  out  our  silk  stockings.  We  shall  have 
some  nice  striped  socks  before  we  begin  to 
do  shopping.  I  am  possessed  with  the  no- 
tion of  trying  the  clogs. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN     7 


Tuesday,  February  11  ( TOKYO). 

To-day  is  a  holiday,  so  we  cannot  go  to  the 
bank,  but  we  can  go  to  a  meeting  where 
they  will  discuss  universal  franchise  and  de- 
mocratization generally.  The  Emperor  is 
said  to  be  indisposed,  so  he  will  not  come 
to  the  celebration.  His  illnesses,  like  every- 
thing else  about  him,  are  arranged  by  the 
ministers  and  mistresses,  as  near  as  we  can 
make  out. 

We  are  having  so  many  interesting  ex- 
periences and  impressions  that  it  is  already 
difficult  to  catch  up  in  writing  them  down. 
Yesterday  morning  we  went  to  walk  and 
in  the  afternoon  we  were  taken  out  in  a 
car  so  that  we  have  got  over  the  first  im- 
pression of  the  surface.  We  saw  the  uni- 
versity and  the  park  where  the  tombs  of  the 
shoguns  are,  and  those  tombs  are  wonder- 
ful, justf  fto  look  at  from  the  car.  About 


8     LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

to-morrow  we  may  be  able  to  go  to  the 
museum.  The  rows  of  stone  lanterns  are 
impressive  beyond  anything  I  had  imagined; 
hundreds  of  them  which  must  have  given  to 
the  nights  they  illuminated  a  wonderfully 
weird  spectral  look. 

It  is  not  fully  true  that  the  Japanese  are 
not  interested  in  their  history.  At  least  the 
educated  are,  as  in  any  other  country.  A 
friend  told  us  about  the  revival  of  interest 
in  the  tea  ceremony.  He  is  going  to  ar- 
range for  us  to  go  to  one  somewhere,  he  did 
not  say  where,  but  it  will  be  accompanied 
by  a  grand  dinner  and  will  express  the 
magnificence  of  the  new  rich  as  well  as  the 
taste  of  old  Japan,  to  judge  from  the  im- 
pressions he  gave  us.  He  told  us  of  an  old 
Chinese  cup  for  the  tea  ceremony  that  a 
certain  millionaire  has  recently  paid  160,000 
yen  for.  That  means  $80,000.  He  says  the 
collectors  have  various  sets,  and  each  set 
will  often  represent  a  million  dollars.  This 
particular  bowl  is  of  black  porcelain  with 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN     9 

decorations  of  bright  color.  He  told  us  also 
of  a  tea  which  is  now  produced  in  China  by 
grafting  the  tea  branches  on  to  lemon  trees. 
He  has  some  of  this  tea  which  was  given 
him  by  the  Chinese  ambassador  and  so  I 
hope  we  may  get  a  taste  of  it. 

Apropos  of  this  hotel  you  will  be  inter- 
ested to  know  the  manager  who  runs  the 
house  has  just  come  home  from  the  Wal- 
dorf and  from  London  where  he  has  been 
learning  how  to  do — people.  The  exchange 
rates  they  offered  Papa  seem  to  be  an 
index  of  their  line  of  development  and  they 
are  going  to  build  more.  This  is  the  one 
first-class  hotel  in  Japan.  At  present  they 
have  only  about  sixty  rooms  or  a  little  more. 

In  general,  things  are  coming  along 
promisingly.  I  should  be  through  lecturing 
by  the  first  of  April  here,  which  is  just  the 
time  to  begin  traveling.  It  turns  out  a  good 
scheme  to  come  in  winter,  for  the  weather, 
while  not  cheerful,  is  far  from  really  cold, 
though  it  is  not  easy  to  see  just  how  the 


10    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

palms  thrive  in  the  snow.  Japan  seems  fo 
have  developed  a  peculiar  type  of  semi- 
tropical  vegetation  which  endures  freezing 
and  winter.  I  can  foresee  that  we  are  go- 
ing to  be  busy  enough,  and  for  the  next  few 
weeks  your  mother  is  going  to  have  more 
time  for  miscellaneous  sight-seeing  than  I. 
It  is  indescribably  fascinating;  in  substance, 
of  course,  like  the  books  and  pictures,  but 
nothing  really  prepares  you  for  the  fact  that 
it  is  not  only  real  in  quality  but  on  such  a 
vast  scale — not  just  specimens  here  and 
there. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    11 


TOKYO,  Thursday,  February  13. 

We  have  done  our  first  independent  shop- 
ping to-day.  I  can't  get  over  my  astonish- 
ment at  the  amount  and  quality  of  English 
spoken  here;  it  is  about  as  easy  shopping  in 
this  store,  the  big  department  store,  as  it  is 
at  home — much  easier  as  respects  attention 
and  comfort.  They  give  us  little  wrappers 
or  feet  gloves  to  put  over  our  shoes.  Think 
of  what  an  improvement  that  would  be  in 
muddy  weather  in  Chicago. 

This  afternoon  is  sort  of  a  lull  after  the 
storm  of  sociability  and  hospitality  which 
reached  its  temporary  height  yesterday. 
Let  me  give  the  diary.  Before  we  had 
finished  breakfast — and  we  have  eaten  every 
morning  at  eight  until  to-day — people  be- 
gan to  call.  Then  two  gentlemen  took  us 
to  the  University  in  their  car  and  we  called 
on  the  President  again.  He  is  a  gentleman 


12    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

of  the  old  school,  Confucianist  I  suppose, 
and  your  mother  was  much  impressed  at 
being  taken  in,  instead  of  staying  in  the  car, 
but  I  think  he  was  much  more  pleased  and 
complimented  by  her  call  than  by  mine. 
Then  we  were  taken  to  the  department 
store  to  which  I  have  already  alluded. 
Many  people  do  all  their  buying  there,  be- 
cause there  are  fixed  prices  with  a  reward 
for  a  discovery  of  any  place  where  the 
same  goods  are  sold  cheaper,  and  abso- 
lute honesty  as  to  quality.  But  they  also 
said  that  was  the  easy  way  to  visit  Japan 
and  learn  about  the  clothes,  ornaments, 
toys,  etc.,  and  also  to  see  the  people,  as 
the  Japanese  from  all  over  the  country 
come  there  to  see  the  sights.  There  were 
a  group  of  country  people  in;  they  are 
called  red  blankets,  not  greenhorns,  because 
they  wear  in  winter  a  red  bed  blanket 
gathered  with  a  string,  instead  of  an  over- 
coat. Then  at  night  it  comes  in  handy. 
The  stores  are  already  displaying  IKe 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    IS 

things  for  the  girls'  festival  though  it 
doesn't  come  till  early  March — this  is  the 
peach  fete,  and  the  display  of  festive  dolls 
— king  and  queen,  servants,  ladies  of  the 
court  in  their  old  costumes,  is  very  interest- 
ing and  artistic.  They  have  certainly  put 
the  doll  to  uses  which  we  haven't  ap- 
proached. Then  we  had  lunch  at  the  store, 
a  regular  Japanese  lunch,  which  tasted  very 
good,  and  I  ate  mine  with  chop  sticks.  Then 
they  brought  us  back  to  the  hotel,  and  at 
two  a  friend  came  and  took  me  to  call  on 
Baron  Shibusawa — I  suppose  even  be- 
nighted foreigners  like  yourself  will  know 
who  he  is,  but  you  may  not  know  that  he  is 
83,  that  he  has  a  skin  like  a  baby's,  and 
shows  all  the  signs  of  the  most  acute  mental 
vigor,  or  that  for  the  last  two  or  three  years 
he  has  given  up  all  business  and  devoted 
himself  to  philanthropic  and  humanitarian 
activities.  He  does  evidently  what  not 
many  American  millionaires  do ;  he  takes  an 
intellectual  and  moral  interest,  and  doesn't 


14    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

merely  give  money.  He  explained  for 
about  half  an  hour  or  more  his  theory  of 
life  (he  is  purely  a  Confucianist  and  not  a 
religionist  of  any  kind),  and  what  he  was 
trying  to  do,  especially  that  it  isn't  merely 
relief.  He  is  desirous  to  preserve  the  old 
Confucian  standards  only  adapted  to  pres- 
ent economic  conditions;  it  is  essentially  a 
morality  of  feudal  economic  relationships, 
as  perhaps  you  know,  and  he  thinks  the 
modern  factory  employers  can  be  brought 
to  take  the  old  paternal  attitude  to  the  em- 
ployees and  thus  forestall  the  class  struggle 
here.  The  radicals  laugh  at  the  notion  here 
much  as  they  would  in  the  United  States, 
but  for  my  part  if  he  can  get  in  a  swipe 
at  the  Marxian  theory  of  social  evolution 
and  bring  about  another  type  still  of  social 
evolution,  I  don't  see  why  he  should  not 
have  a  run  for  his  money.  According  to 
all  reports  there  is  very  little  labor  and 
capital  problem  here  yet,  though  the  big  for- 
tunes made  by  the  war  and  the  increased 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    15 

prosperity  of  the  workingmen  have  begun 
to  make  a  change,  it  is  said.  Up  to  the 
present  labor  unions  have  not  been  permit- 
ted, but  the  government  has  announced  that 
while  they  are  not  encouraged  they  will  not 
be  any  longer  forbidden. 

But  I  must  get  back  to  the  story.  An- 
other friend  had  asked  us  to  go  to  the 
theater  with  him,  the  Imperial  Theater, 
which  has  European  seats  and  is  a  fine  and 
large  building,  as  fine  as  in  any  capital  and 
not  overdecorated  like  a  New  York  one. 
The  theater  began  at  four,  and,  with  about 
half  an  hour  intermission  for  dinner,  con- 
tinued till  ten  at  night ;  the  regular  Japanese 
theaters  begin  at  eleven  in  the  morning  and 
continue  till  ten  at  night  and  you  have  your 
food  brought  to  you;  also  they  have  no  seats 
and  you  sit  on  your  legs.  None  of  the 
plays  was  strictly  of  the  old  historic  type, 
but  the  most  interesting  one  by  far  was 
adapted  from  a  classic — it  centers  to  some 
extent  about  a  faithful  horse,  and  the 


16    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

people  are  country  farmers  of  several  cen- 
turies ago.  The  least  interesting  was  a  kind 
of  problem  play — mostly  philosophical  dis- 
course of  the  modern  type — the  right  to  ex- 
pression of  self  and  an  artistic  career, 
aphorisms  having  no  dramatic  appeal  to 
even  the  Japanese  audience.  These  people 
certainly  have  an  alert  intelligence — almost 
as  specialized  as  the  Parisian,  for  the  audi- 
ence was  distinctly  of  the  people,  and  no 
American  audience  could  be  got  to  pay  the 
close  attention  it  gave  to  performances 
where  the  merits,  so  far  as  they  are  not 
strictly  artistic,  in  the  technique  of  acting 
which  is  very  highly  developed,  depend 
upon  catching  the  play  of  moral  emotions 
rather  than  upon  anything  very  theatrical. 
However,  the  classic  drama  which  is  based 
upon  old  stories  and  traditions  is  more 
dramatic  and  melodramatic.  The  Japanese 
also  say  the  old  theater  has  much  better 
actors  than  the  semi-Europeanized  one 
which  is,  I  suppose,  supported  by  the  gov- 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    17 

eminent.  In  the  Imperial,  the  orchestra 
seats  are  one  dollar  and  a  half;  they  are 
more — on  the  floor  at  that — in  the  all-day 
theaters.  Even  in  this  one  they  have  not 
introduced  applause,  though  there  was 
slight  handclapping  once  or  twice  when  the 
curtain  went  down.  The  Japanese  have  al- 
ways had  the  revolving  theater  as  a  means 
of  scene  shifting;  it  works  like  a  railway 
turntable  apparently.  Well,  that  ended  the 
day  yesterday.  Except  we  had  invited  two 
gentlemen  to  dinner,  and  when  we  told  our 
friends  about  it,  they  said,  "OH,  just  tele- 
phone them  to  come  some  other  day,"  which 
appears  to  be  good  Japanese  etiquette,  as 
it  is  also  to  make  calls  at  any  time  of  the 
day,  so  we  did.  But  unfortunately  they 
had  to  telephone  to-day  that  they  couldn't 
come  to-night. 

To-day  has  been  comparatively  calm;  we 
have  only  had  four  Japanese  callers  and 
two  American  ones.  Of  the  two  Japanese, 
one  is  a  woman  who  is  the  warden  of  the 


18    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

Girls'  University,  and  the  other  is  a  teacher 
in  it,  a  young  woman  of  a  wealthy  and  aris- 
tocratic family  who  has  become  too  modern, 
I  judge,  for  her  family.  I  hope  all  you 
children  will  make  a  bow  to  every  Japanese 
you  meet  and  ask  him  what  you  can  do  to 
be  of  service  to  him.  I  shall  have  to  spend 
the  rest  of  my  life  trying  to  make  up  for 
some  of  the  kindnesses  and  courtesies  which 
so  abound  here. 

I  am  afraid  much  of  this  is  more  inter- 
esting to  me  to  write  about  than  it  is  to  you 
to  read,  to  say  nothing  of  being  more  in- 
teresting to  go  through  than  to  read  about. 
But  you  can  then  save  the  letter  for  us  to 
re-read  when  we  get  old  and  return  from 
our  Odysseying,  and  wish  to  recover  the 
memories  of  the  days  when  people  were  so 
kind  that  they  created  in  us  the  illusion  of 
being  somebody,  and  gave  us  the  combined 
enjoyments  of  home  and  being  in  a  strange 
and  semi-magic  country;  semi-magic  for  us. 
For  the  mass  of  the  people,  one  can  only 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    19 

wonder  at  their  cheerfulness  and  realize 
what  a  really  old  and  overcrowded  country 
is  and  how  Buddhism  and  stoic  fatalistic 
cheerfulness  develop.  Don't  ever  fool  your- 
self into  thinking  of  Japan  as  a  new  coun- 
try; I  don't  any  longer  believe  the  people 
who  tell  you  that  you  have  to  go  to  China 
and  India  to  see  antiquity.  Superficially 
it  may  be  so,  but  not  fundamentally.  Any 
country  is  old  where  birth  and  death  are 
like  the  coming  and  dropping  of  leaves  on 
a  tree,  and  where  the  individual  is  of  as 
much  importance  as  the  leaf.  Old  world 
and  New  world  are  not  mere  relatives;  they 
are  as  near  absolutes  as  anything. 

We  heard  a  whistle  making  its  cry  outside 
and  Mamma  thought  it  was  the  bank  mes- 
senger, so  I  rang  the  bell  for  the  boy  to 
bring  him  in— but  alas,  it  was  much  less 
romantic;  it  was  the  call  of  the  macaroni 
peddler. 


20    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


TOKYO,  February. 

Here  we  are,  one  week  after  landing,  on 
a  hill  in  a  beautiful  garden  of  trees  on 
which  the  buds  are  already  swelling.  The 
plums  will  soon  be  in  bloom,  and  in  March 
the  camellias,  which  grow  to  fairly  large 
trees.  In  the  distance  we  see  the  wonderful 
Fuji,  nearby  the  other  hills  of  this  district, 
and  the  further  plains  of  the  city.  Just 
at  the  foot  of  our  hill  is  a  canal,  along 
which  is  an  alley  of  cherry  trees  formerly 
famous,  but  largely  destroyed  by  a  storm  a 
few  years  ago. 

We  have  a  wonderful  apartment  to  our- 
selves, mostly  all  windows,  which  in  this 
house  are  glass.  A  very  large  bedroom,  a 
small  dressing  room,  and  a  study  where  I 
now  sit  with  the  sun  coming  in  the  windows 
which  are  all  its  sides.  We  need  this  sun, 
though  the  hibashi,  or  boxes  of  charcoal, 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    21 

do  wonders  in  warming  up  your  feet  and 
drying  hair,  as  I  am  now  doing.  We  are 
surrounded  by  all  the  books  on  Japan  that 
modern  learning  has  produced,  so  we  have 
never  a  waiting  moment.  The  house  is  very 
large,  with  one  house  after  another  covering 
the  hilltop  and  connected  by  the  galleries 
that  are  cut  off  the  sides  of  each  room  in 
succession.  I  shall  try  to  get  a  photo.  At 

the  extreme  end  of  the  house  is  Mr.  X 9s 

library  of  several  rooms,  and  at  the  limit  of 
that  the  tea  room  for  the  tea  ceremonies. 
Our  host  is  not  one  of  the  new  rich  who 
buy  sets  at  a  million  dollars  for  performing 
this  ceremony.  He  laughs  at  that.  But 
there  is  a  gold  lacquer  table  which  is  like 
transfixed  sunshine,  and  there  are  other 
pieces  of  old  furniture,  which  are  priceless 
now,  and  which  have  come  down  in  his 
family.  You  would  be  amused  to  see  us  at 
breakfast,  which  O-Tei,  the  maid  assigned 
to  us,  serves  in  our  sun  parlor.  First  we 
have  fruit.  Two  little  lacquer  tables  to 


22    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

move  wherever  we  want  to  sit.  The  dishes 
and  service  are  in  our  fashion  in  this  house. 
Nice  old  blue  Canton  plates  and  other  things 
Japanese.  After  fruit  she  makes  toast  over 
the  charcoal  in  the  hibashi,  two  little  iron 
sticks  stuck  in  the  bread  to  hold  it.  On 
these  prongs  she  hands  us  the  toast.  Mean- 
time she  teaches  us  Japanese  and  we  teach 
her  English  which  she  already  knows,  and 
she  giggles  every  time  we  speak.  Well, 
we  put  our  toast  down  on  the  plate  and 
she  disappears.  The  coffee  pot  is  on  a  side 
table  and  we  desperately  look  for  cups  for 
ourselves,  though  with  some  fear  of  disturb- 
ing the  etiquette.  No  cups,  she  forgot  them. 
After  a  while  she  comes  up  again  with  the 
cups  and  we  get  coffee,  then  she  goes  down 
again  and  brings  scrambled  eggs  on  the  nice 
old  blue  plates.  Then  she  giggles  a  little 
more  and  talks  in  that  soft  voice  that  is 
like  nothing  else  we  ever  heard,  as  she 
hands  us  a  nice  hot  piece  of  toast  on  an 
iron  spike;  she  is  much  pleased  and  giggles 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    23 

because  I  tell  her  the  toast  is  not  harmed  by 
dropping  it  on  the  clean  floor,  and  she  walks 
off  into  the  big  bedroom  to  bring  the  coffee 
from  the  gas  heater.  It  is  all  like  a  pretty 
play  unmarred  by  any  remote  ideas  about 
efficiency,  and  time  and  labor-saving  de- 
vices. Then  two  maids  make  our  beds ;  then 
they  dust  the  floor,  one  holding  up  the  sofa 
on  edge  while  the  other  whisks  underneath 
it,  and  they  smile  and  bow  and  take  an  in- 
terest in  every  move  we  make  as  if  we  were 
their  dearest  friends. 

Enter  now  the  housekeeper  who,  with 
many  bows,  announces  v-e-r-y  s-1-o-w-l-y 
that  she  would  like  to  accompany  me  to  go 
about  the  city  and  to  explain  things  to  me, 
as  I  would  thus  teach  her  English.  I  asked 
if  she  were  going  to  church  and  she  said  she 
wasn't  a  Christian.  Think  what  a  funny 
sound  that  has.  She  is  the  secretary  of  Mr. 

X and  a  student  in  the  new  Christian 

college  of  which  he  is  the  President.     She 
comes  in  now  to  wait  on  us  at  breakfast  and 


24    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

she  stays  and  repeats  English  after  us.  She 
knows  a  lot  of  English,  but  it  is  so  literary 
that  it  is  quite  amusing  to  turn  her  into  the 
ways  of  ordinary  talk.  To  get  her  to  open 
her  mouth  and  break  the  polite  Japanese 
whisper,  in  which  the  Japanese  women 
speak,  is  what  I  work  most  on.  Yesterday 
we  visited  the  Women's  University  which  is 
within  walking  distance  of  this  house.  The 
President,  Mr.  Naruse,  is  dying  of  cancer. 
He  is  in  bed  but  is  able  to  talk  quite 
naturally.  He  has  made  a  farewell  address 
to  his  students,  has  said  good-bye  to  his 
faculty  in  a  speech,  and  has  named  the  dean, 
who  is  acting  in  his  place  now,  as  his  suc- 
cessor. At  this  University  they  teach 
flower  arrangement,  long  sword,  and  Jap- 
anese etiquette,  and  the  chief  warden  is  a 
fine  woman.  She  says  I  may  come  in  as 
much  as  I  like  to  see  those  different  things. 
In  the  afternoon  we  had  callers  again, 
among  them  two  women.  Women  are 
rare.  One,  a  Dr.  R ,  is  an  osteopath  who 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    25 

has  practiced  here  for  fifteen  years  and  is 
an  (old  friend  of  our  host's.  The  second, 

Miss  T ,  has  just  returned  from  seven 

years  in  our  country.  I  heard  much  of  her  at 
Stanford  and  brought  letters  to  her.  She 
has  a  chair  in  the  Women's  University.  It 
is  a  chair  of  Sociology,  but  she  says  the 
authorities  are  afraid  the  time  has  not  yet 
come  for  her  to  start  on  sociology,  so  she 
will  begin  with  the  teaching  of  English  and 
work  into  sociology  by  the  process  of  in- 
gratiating it  into  her  classes.  She  is  an  in- 
teresting personality.  She  was  sent  to  me 
to  say  I  might  be  lonely  because  your 
father  was  away  so  she  was  to  take  me, 
with  any  other  friends  I  wanted,  to  the 
theater.  As  we  had  already  been  to  the 
Imperial  Theater  and  sat  in  the  Baron's  box 
it  was  finally  arranged  to  go  to  the  Kabuki, 
where  we  sit  on  the  floor  and  see  real  old 
Japanese  acting,  which  I  am  very  anxious 
to  do.  I  understand  it  begins  at  11  in  the 
morning  and  lasts  until  ten  at  night. 


26    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


February  22. 

Yesterday  we  went  to  the  theater,  be- 
ginning at  one  and  ending  about  nine;  tea 
is  constantly  in  the  box,  and  little  meals — 
and  a  big  one — between  the  acts.  We  liked 
the  old  Japanese  theater  better  than  the 
more  or  less  modernized  one.  Baron  Shi- 
busawa  presented  us  with  a  box — or  rather 
two  of  them — and  his  niece  and  another 
relative  and  the  two  young  people  from  the 
house  went.  I  won't  try  to  describe  the 
dramas,  except  to  say  that  the  way  to  study 
Japanese  history  and  tradition  would  be  to 
go  to  the  theater  with  some  one  to  interpret, 
and  that  while  the  theater  is  as  plain  as  a 
medieval  European  one,  the  dresses  are  even 
more  elaborate  and  costly.  The  stage  is  a 
beautiful  spectacle  when  there  are  forty 
old  Samurai  on  it,  as  the  garments  are  gen- 
uine, not  tinsel.  Mamma  went  more  than 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    27 

I,  because  I  had  to  leave  at  half-past 
four  to  go  to  the  Concordia  Society — in 
fact,  I  hadn't  expected  to  go  at  all  at  first, 
as  the  Baron  said  that  he  sent  the  offer  of 
the  box  because  he  feared  Mamma  might 
be  lonely  when  I  was  away!  There  were 
about  twenty-five  Japanese  and  Americans 
at  the  meeting  and  after  I  had  spoken  for 
half  an  hour  we  had  dinner  in  an  adjoin- 
ing restaurant,  and  then  sat  around  and 
visited  for  an  hour  or  so. 

The  great  event  of  the  week,  aside  from 
the  theater  yesterday,  was  visiting  the 
Women's  University — you  mightn't  think 
that  a  great  treat,  but  you  don't  know  what 
we  saw.  We  started  early  to  walk,  since  it 
isn't  far  and  we  had  been  shown  the  way 
once,  but  we  were  rubbering  so  busily  at  the 
shops  that  we  failed  to  notice  where  we 
were  till  we  got  to  the  end  of  things  and 
then  had  to  turn  around  and  walk  back,  so 
we  got  there  late.  The  forenoon  we  spent 
in  the  elementary  classes  and  kindergarten, 


28    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

which  are  their  practice  school.  Those  very 
bright  kimonos  for  children  you  see  are  real 
— all  the  children  wear  them,  as  bright  as 
can  be,  generally  reds,  and  then  some.  So 
the  rooms  where  the  little  children  were  are 
like  gardens  of  flowers  with  bright  birds  in 
them — gay  as  can  be.  The  work  was  all 
interesting,  but  the  colored  crayon  draw- 
ings particularly.  They  have  a  great  deal 
of  freedom  there,  and  instead  of  the  chil- 
dren imitating  and  showing  no  individuality 
— which  seems  to  be  the  proper  thing  to 
say — I  never  saw  so  much  variety  and  so 
little  similarity  in  drawings  and  other  hand 
work,  to  say  nothing  of  its  quality  being 
much  better  than  the  average  of  ours.  The 
children  were  under  no  visible  discipline, 
but  were  good  as  well  as  happy;  they  paid 
no  attention  to  visitors,  which  I  think  is 
ultramodern,  as  I  expected  to  see  them  all 
rise  and  bow.  If  you  will  think  of  doing 
all  the  regular  school  work — including  in 
this  school  a  good  deal  of  hand  work, 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    29 

ing,  etc. — and  then  learning  by  the  end  of 
the  sixth  grade  a  thousand  or  more  Chinese 
characters,  to  make  as  well  as  to  read,  you 
will  have  some  idea  of  how  industrious  the 
kids  have  to  be,  and  of  course  they  have  to 
learn  Japanese  characters,  too.  Then  we 
had  a  luncheon,  ten  of  us  altogether,  cooked 
and  served  by  the  girls  in  the  Domestic  De- 
partment; some  luncheon! — and  garnished 
in  a  way  to  beat  the  Ritz — European  food 
and  service.  Then  the  real  show  began. 
First  we  had  flower  arrangement,  ancient 
and  modern  styles,  then  examples  of  the 
ancient  etiquette  in  serving  tea  and  cakes  to 
guests,  and  then  of  inferiors  calling  on 
superiors;  then  Koto  playing — a  thirteen- 
stringed  harp  that  lies  on  the  floor — first  two 
girls  and  the  teacher,  and  then  a  solo  by 
the  teacher.  He  is  blind  and  said  to  be  the 
best  player  in  Japan;  he  gave  "Cotton 
Bleaching  in  the  Brook,"  and  said  he  rarely 
played  it,  only  once  a  year.  Well,  you 
could  hear  the  water  ripple  and  fall,  and  hit 


30    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

the  stones,  and  the  women  singing  and  beat- 
ing the  cotton.  I  could  hear  it  better  than 
I  can  hear  spring  in  our  music,  so  I 
think  perhaps  my  ears  are  made  to  fit  the 
Japanese  scale,  or  lack  of  it.  Then  we  were 
taken  into  the  tea  house  and  shown  the  tea 
ceremony,  being  served  with  tea.  Mamma 
sat  tatami,  on  her  heels,  but  I  basely  took 
a  chair.  Then  we  went  to  the  gymnasium 
and  saw  the  old  Samurai  women's  sword 
and  spear  exercises,  etc.  The  teacher  was 
an  old  woman  of  seventy-five  and  as  lithe 
and  nimble  as  a  cat — more  graceful  than 
any  of  the  girls.  I  have  an  enormous  re- 
spect now  for  the  old  etiquette  and  cere- 
monies regarded  as  physical  culture.  Every 
movement  has  to  be  made  perfectly,  and  it 
cannot  be  done  without  conscious  control. 
The  modernized  gym  exercises  by  the  chil- 
dren were  simply  pitiful  compared  with  all 
these  ceremonies.  Then  we  were  taken  to 
the  dormitories,  which  are  in  a  garden, 
simple  wooden  Japanese  buildings,  like 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    31 

barns  our  girls  would  think,  but  everything 
so  clean  you  could  eat  on  the  floor  any- 
where, with  the  south  side  all  glass  and  sun, 
and  the  girls  sitting  on  the  floor  to  study  on 
a  table  about  a  foot  and  a  half  high;  no  beds 
or  chairs  to  litter  up  the  rooms.  Then 
after  we  were  taken  over  some  of  the  other 
rooms,  we  went  back  to  the  dining-room 
and  had  a  most  exquisite  Japanese  vege- 
tarian Buddhist  lunch  served  —  just  a 
sample,  all  on  a  little  plate,  but  including 
the  sweets  for  dessert,  five  or  six  things  all 
quite  different  and  elegantly  cooked.  Also 
three  kinds  of  tea. 

Politeness  is  so  universal  here  that  when 
we  get  back  we  shall  either  be  so  civil  that 
you  won't  know  us,  or  else  we  shall  be  so 
irritated  that  nobody  is  sufficiently  civil  that 

you  won't  know  us  either.  Mr.  X took  me 

in  his  car  and  brought  me  back.  When  we 
got  to  the  hall  there  were  five  maids  bowing 
and  smiling  to  get  our  slippers  and  hang 
up  our  coats  and  hats.  Just  going  in  or 


32   LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

out  is  like  going  to  a  picnic;  I  think  the 
maids  enjoy  this  change  in  their  regular 
work,  for  they  really  smile,  as  if  they  were 
having  the  time  of  their  lives.  If  it  is  per- 
functory and  put  on,  they  have  me  fooled. 
Well,  I'll  spare  you  all  any  philosophical 
reflections  this  trip.  Besides,  I've  been  too 
busy  having  a  good  time  to  think  of  any. 
They  will  probably  grow  spontaneously  in 
China.  I  forgot  whether  I  told  you  in  my 
last  letter  that  the  Minister  of  the  Interior 
has  given  me  a  monthly  and  renewable  pass 
first  class  on  the  Japanese  railways.  A 
friend  here  asked  him  for  one  for  Mamma, 
too,  but  he  said  he  was  very  sorry,  that  privi- 
lege could  not  be  extended  to  a  woman.  So 
I'm  the  only  grafter  in  the  family.  I 
haven't  had  a  chance  to  use  it  yet,  but  shall 
make  one  at  the  first  opportunity  in  order 
to  get  the  sensation. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN   33 

TOKYO,  Friday,  February  28. 

I  don't  get  much  sightseeing  done  except 
in  the  way  of  seeing  street  sights.  I  am 
generally  accompanied  when  I  take  a  walk 
for  exercise  and  always  taken  by  some  new 
way.  The  other  evening  we  went  out  after 
dinner  and  took  a  walk  to  a  lively  street 
not  far  off — booksellers  with  their  things 
spread  out  on  the  sidewalk  or  rather  road, 
little  lunch  wagons,  crowded  streets  and 
shops — they  have  electricity  everywhere, 
and  some  geisha  girls  trotting  along  with 
maids  to  carry  their  samisens.  We  went 
into  a  Japanese  movie  beside  rubbering  at 
everything  and  then  went  into  a  Japanese 
restaurant.  Their  eating  places  here  are 
specialized — this  was  a  noodle  shop,  and  we 
tried  three  kinds,  one  wheat  in  a  soup,  one 
buckwheat  with  fried  shrimps,  and  another 
cold  with  seaweed.  For  the  entire  lot  for 
the  two  of  us  it  cost  27  cents  American 


34   LETTERS  PROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

money,  and  the  place,  which  was  an  ordinary 
one,  was  cleaner  than  any  American  one, 
even  the  hest.  The  movie  story  seemed 
more  complicated  than  any  of  ours,  and  was 
certainly  slower,  because  there  is  a  man  and 
a  woman  in  a  little  coop  near  the  curtain 
who  say  what  the  actors  are  saying  when- 
ever their  lips  move,  this  gives  a  chance  of 
course  for  more  talk.  There  were  a  few 
knockouts  and  a  murder  and  a  villain  and 
a  persecuted  damsel,  and  an  attempted  sui- 
cide to  provide  thrills,  but  I  couldn't  make 
out  what  it  was  about  even  with  the  aid  of 
the  guide  with  me.  Such  are  simple  pleas- 
ures here,  save  that  when  we  walk  in  the 
daytime  we  generally  go  to  a  temple  where 
on  the  whole  the  people  are  more  interest- 
ing than  the  temples,  though  sometimes  the 
layout  of  trees  is  beautiful  and  gives  much 
the  same  effect  of  religious  calm  as  a  cathe- 
dral. In  general  the  similarity  between 
worship  here  and  the  country  Italian 
Catholicism  is  more  striking  than  anything 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN   35 

else.  They  are  slightly  more  naive  here — 
to  see  the  dolls,  woolly  dogs,  and  pinwheels 
at  the  shrines  of  the  children's  gods,  besides 
their  straw  slippers,  straw  sandals  and  an 
occasional  child's  kimono  is  quite  touching, 
also  sometimes  a  mother  has  cut  off  her  hair 
and  pinned  it  up  as  an  offering.  Other 
things  are  as  humorous  as  these  are  pathetic, 
such  as  making  spitballs  of  written  prayers 
and  pasting  the  god  with  them.  Some  of 
the  gods  are  now  protected  by  wire  netting 
on  this  account.  I  have  got  fairly  well  used 
to  the  street  scenes  now  and  can  tell  most 
of  the  kinds  of  shops,  such  as  an  under- 
taker's from  a  cooper's.  What  makes  the 
street  so  interesting  is  that  you  can  look  in 
and  see  everything  going  on.  I  forgot  to 
mention  the  most  interesting  street  thing 
I've  seen,  a  bird  catcher  with  a  long  limed 
pole  like  a  bamboo  fishing  rod,  a  basket 
with  a  valve  door  to  put  them  in  and  some 
other  utensils.  I  didn't  see  him  catch  any, 
though. 


36    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


Sunday  Morning,  March  2. 

I  am  writing  early  because  we  are  going 
to-day  to  Kamakura.  You  have  probably 
heard  of  the  big  bronze  Buddha — fifty  feet 
high — well,  that  is  there.  A  friend  has  ar- 
ranged an  interview  for  us  with  the  most 
distinguished  or  most  learned  of  the  Bud- 
dhist priests  in  Japan — who  belongs  to  the 
most  philosophical  of  all  the  sects,  the  Zen, 
which  believes  in  the  simple  life  and  is  more 
or  less  Stoical;  this  is  the  sect  that  had  the 
greatest  influence  on  the  warrior  class  in  the 
good  old  days.  Kamakura  is  on  the  other 
side  of  Yokohama,  an  old  Shogun  capital; 
has  lots  of  historic  shrines,  etc. 

Yesterday  I  made  my  first  speech  with 
an  interpreter  to  a  teachers'  association, 
some  five  hundred  in  all,  mostly  elementary 
school  teachers  conspicuous  for  the  fact  that 
only  about  twenty-five  were  women.  In  the 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    37 

evening  we  went  to  a  supper  and  reception 
of  the  English- Speaking  Society,  Americans 
and  Japanese,  mostly  the  latter;  both  men 
and  women  and  the  most  generally  sociable 
thing  we  have  seen  yet.  We  have  heard  said 
it  was  the  only  place  in  Tokyo  where  Japan- 
ese men  and  women  really  met  in  a  free 
sociable  way,  and  the  president  said  that 
when  Japanese  met  for  sociable  purposes 
they  were  reserved  and  stiff — at  least  till  the 
wine  went  round — as  long  as  they  spoke 
Japanese,  but  speaking  English  brought 
back  the  habits  they  got  in  America  and 
thawed  them  out — an  interesting  psycho- 
logical observation  on  the  effect  of  language. 


88    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


TOKYO,  Tuesday,  March  4. 

You  would  be  surprised  to  see  how  free 
from  all  affectations  this  country  has  re- 
mained, at  least  so  far  as  we  see  it.  There 
is  a  social  democracy  here  that  we  do  not 
know.  All  Japan  is  talking  democracy  now, 
which  is  to  be  taken  in  the  sense  of  repre- 
sentative government  rather  than  in  the 
sense  of  tearing  down  the  present  form  of 
government.  The  representation  in  elec- 
tions here  now  does  not  seem  to  extend  much 
further,  if  any,  than  to  include  those  large 
taxpayers  who  would  under  any  system  be 
a  force  in  forming  policy.  The  extension 
of  the  suffrage  is  the  great  question  under 
discussion  at  present.  That  and  the  expan- 
sion of  special  education  for  men  are  the 
turning  points  for  the  coming  legislators. 
Japan  has  acquired  many  new  millionaires 
during  the  war  and  those  men  are  already 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    89 

founding  new  schools  for  vocational  pur- 
poses for  men.  Four  hundred  and  forty  stu- 
dents are  to  be  sent  abroad  with  a  very  gen- 
erous allowance  for  living  in  the  different 
foreign  countries,  none  of  them  women,  and 
no  women  are  mentioned  in  any  of  the  new 
appropriation  bills.  Not  even  a  mention  of 
the  needs  for  women. 

Yesterday,  to  begin,  was  spent  thus:  It 
was  the  famous  festival  of  dolls.  In  the 
morning  I  made  a  dress  for  a  poor  sort  of 
foreign  doll  I  had  hunted  out  for  a  little  girl. 
It  was  all  American.  Another  ridiculous 
imitation  of  American  baby,  looking  half 
caste  Japanese,  has  still  to  be  dressed  when 
I  can  find  the  material  for  long  clothes,  but 
I  presented  it  as  is.  They  invited  me  in  to 
see  their  exhibition.  Some  of  their  dolls  are 
two  hundred  years  old  from  their  mothers' 
family.  I  shall  try  to  find  some  literature 
on  this  festival  as  it  is  too  long  to  write 
about.  But  it  is  true  that  one  begins  imme- 
diately to  get  the  passion  for  dolls ;  they  are 


40    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

not  dead  things  like  ours,  but  works  of  art 
symbolic  of  all  the  different  phases  of  na- 
tional life.  The  little  girls  were  delighted 
with  their  possessions.  If  I  had  only  known 
about  this  I  should  have  known  what  to 
bring  to  Japan  for  gifts,  instead  of  feeling 
as  helpless  as  I  did.  If  you  come,  bring 


In  the  afternoon  I  was  invited  to  go  to 
the  best  or  one  of  the  best  collections  in  the 
country  and  that  was  a  great  experience.  It 
began  very  painfully  for  me  because  I  got 
lost  and  was  three-quarters  of  an  hour  late 
at  the  Imperial  Hotel  from  which  we 
started.  The  family  that  owns  this  famous 
collection  is  very  old  and  the  wife  is  the 
daughter  of  a  Dairnyo,  hence  the  dolls  are 
very  old.  And  they  are  wonderful,  and 
more  wonderful  still  their  housekeeping 
equipment  of  old  lacquer  and  porcelain  and 
glass.  The  doll  refreshments  are  served  in 
tiny  dishes  on  tiny  tables  while  the  guests 
sit  on  the  floor,  the  hostess  and  her  family 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    41 

doing  all  the  serving.  We  had  the  thick 
white  wine  made  from  rice  poured  out  of 
wonderful  little  decanters  into  tiny  glasses. 
We  drank  to  the  health  of  the  family  and 
the  stuff  is  delicious,  with  an  aroma  such  as 
no  honey  can  excel.  After  these  refresh- 
ments we  were  shown  the  room  for  the  tea 
ceremony  and  then  taken  back  into  the  for- 
eign part  of  the  house  for  real  refreshments, 
which  consisted  of  many  and  .wonderful  va- 
rieties of  cakes.  The  tea  was  served  in  cups 
with  saucers  decorated  with  plum  blossoms, 
this  being  the  time  of  plum  blossoms.  Then 
tea  cups  taken  away  and  cups  of  rich  choco- 
late placed  on  the  tables.  These  tables  were 
high  enough  for  the  ordinary  chairs.  All 
the  foreign  houses  are  very  -ugly  in  style  but 
very  comfortable  and  mid- Victorian.  The 
Baroness  urged  us  to  eat  special  cakes  and 
we  left  stuffed.  One  kind  is  in»the  form  of 
a  beautiful  pink  leaf  wrapped  in  a  cherry 
leaf  which  has  been  preserved  from  last  year. 
The  leaf  gives  -the  cake  a  delicious  flavor 


42    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

and  also  a  cover  to  protect  the  fingers  from 
its  stickiness.  Then  three  little  round  brown 
cakes  looking  some  like  chocolate — on  a 
skewer.  You  bite  off  the  first  one  whole, 
then  slip  the  other  two  as  you  eat  them. 
Those  alone  are  enough  for  a  meal  and  very 
nourishing.  All  cakes  are  made  from  bean 
paste  or  like  our  richest  pastries.  When 
that  second  meal  was  finished,  we  said  good- 
bye. The  Baroness  and  her  three  pretty 
daughters  and  her  sister  all  followd  us  to 
the  outer  door  and  when  our  auto  drove  off 
the  last  thing  we  saw  were  the  bows  of  the 
butlers  and  these  pretty  ladies,  all  saying 
one  more  harmonious  good-bye.  The 
young  girls  dress  in  kimonos  of  wool  muslin 
of  the  brightest  colors  and  designs  which  are 
conceivable  even  to  the  Japanese  imagina- 
tion. They  look  like  a  very  profusely  bloom- 
ing garden  of  old  fashioned  perennials. 

The  garden  is  indescribable.  I  had  some 
fancy  of  what  a  Japanese  garden  would  look 
like,  but  find  it  is  nothing  at  all  beside  the 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    43 

reality.  This  place  is  big  and  the  grass  is 
now  brown.  Most  of  the  grass  is  covered 
with  a  thick  carpet  of  pine  needles  and  at 
the  edge  of  the  pine  needle  carpet  a  rope  of 
twisted  straw  outlines  graceful  curves.  The 
use  of  the  big  stones  is  the  most  surprising 
part  of  the  whole.  They  are  very  old  and 
weather-stained,  of  many  shades  of  gray  and 
blue-gray,  with  the  short  shrubs  for  a  back- 
ground, and  the  severity  and  simplicity  of 
the  result  has  a  classic  beauty  which  we  may 
attain  in  centuries,  and  only  after  we  have 
consumed  our  abundance  of  things  material. 
Then  we  went  to  dinner  at  the  house  of 

Profssor  M .   There  are  six  children  in 

his  family,  the  oldest  a  man  of  about  twenty- 
five,  a  graduate  of  the  Imperial  University, 
now  a  factory  inspector  for  the  government ; 
he  speaks  eight  languages.  One  of  these  is 
Esperanto,  which  is  his  hobby.  The  French 
Professors  were  there  also,  two  of  them,  a 
clever  and  amusing  pair,  who  did  their  duty 
in  talking,  and  the  young  man  spoke  better 


44    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

than  any  of  us  and  with  an  excellent  pronun- 
ciation. He  has  never  been  out  of  Japan. 
Two  little  girls  and  a  young  boy  appeared 
after  dinner  and  made  their  pretty  bows  to 
the  floor,  and  then  went  to  a  low  table  and 
squatted  and  played  Go  the  rest  of  the 
evening.  Go  is  the  famous  shell  game.  Go 
means  five  and  it  is  a  game  of  fives,  but  ask 
me  no  more,  except  that  the  men  are  364  in 
number  and  you'  play  it  on  an  expanded 
checker  board.  There  was  an  endless  suc- 
cession of  food  and  drinks  and  we  did  not 
leave  till  nearly  eleven.  Japanese  families 
have  many  nice  drinks  which  we  do  not. 
Theirs  are  perhaps  no  better  than  our  best 
ones,  but  they  add  to  the  pleasant  variety  of 
non-alcoholic  drinks.  Besides  those  we  had 
two  wines. 

This  was  the  dinner  as  near  as  I  can  re- 
member. A  menu  card  was  at  each  plate 
and  I  fancy  they  were  intended  as  souvenirs 
for  the  foreign  guests,  but  I  forgot  to  take 
mine,  if  that  was  their  purpose.  We  had 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    45 

soup,  bread  of  two  kinds,  and  butter.  Then 
fish  patties,  then  little  birds,  boned,  on  toast 
with  a  vegetable,  then  ramekins  of  Japan- 
ese macaroni,  which  is  not  like  ours.  Next 
roast  beef,  very  tender  fillet,  with  potato 
balls,  peas,  gravy,  another  vegetable  forgot, 
and  salad,  white  and  red  wine,  coming  after 
the  orange  cider.  Then  a  delicious  pudding, 
then  cake  and  strawberries.  Those  berries 
are  raised  out  of  doors.  They  are  planted 
between  rows  of  stones  which  are  heated  ar- 
tificially, I  did  not  quite  understand  how, 
the  vines  being  kept  from  touching  the 
stones  by  low  bamboo  trellises.  Whipped 
cream  served  with  the  berries.  Then  deli- 
cious coffee  in  foreign  style. 

After  dinner  we  leave  the  reception  room 
in  foreign  style  and  go  upstairs  to  the  big 
Japanese  room,  sit  by  the  hibashi  or  the 
grate,  and  here  the  children  come.  At  once 
tea  is  served.  Then  just  as  we  were  start- 
ing for  home  we  were  urged  to  stay  for  a 
drink,  which  was  more  orange  cider,  very 


46    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

sweet,  and  bottled  waters,  which  are  so  good 
and  come  from  the  many  natural  springs. 
One  of  the  amusements  of  the  Japanese  is 
seeing  the  foreign  visitors  try  to  sit,  and  you 
can't  wonder  they  are  amused.  I  can  man- 
age it,  in  awkward  fashion,  but  your  father 
can't  even  bend  for  the  pose.  On  Sunday 
we  sat  for  two  hours  in  the  presence  of  the 
greatest  Buddhist  priest  in  Japan,  and  you 
can  guess  whether  we  wriggled  and  if  my 
feet  were  asleep  if  you  try  the  pose  for  a 
few  minutes  yourself,  even  on  a  nice  soft 
cushion  as  we  were.  Getting  up  properly 
is  the  hardest  part  of  it. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    47 


TOKYO,  Tuesday,  March  4. 

Our  friends  took  us  to  Kamakura ;  it  isn't 
interesting  reading  these  things  in  advance 
in  guide  books,  so  I  don't  think  a  description 
will  be  interesting,  but  something  over  seven 
hundred  years  ago,  the  first  Shogun  rulers 
settled  there  and  made  it  their  capital,  of 
which  nothing  is  now  left  save  the  Buddhist 
temples.  We  met  on  the  train  going  down 
the  professor  of  Japanese  literature  in  the 
University,  who  was  going  there  because  it 
was  the  seventh  hundred  anniversary  of  a 
Shogun  who  wrote  poetry,  and  the  pro- 
fessor was  going  over  to  lecture  on  his 
poems.  Also  we  ran  across  several  hun- 
dred school  children,  boys  and  girls  with 
their  teachers,  who  were  spending  Sunday 
seeing  the  historic  sights.  One  of  the  big 
temples  to  the  god  of  war  was  a  kind 


48    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

of  museum,  with  old  swords  and  masks 
and  things  in  it.  They  took  us  to  call  on 
the  Reverend  Shaku,  who  is  the  head  of  the 
Zen  sect  of  Buddhists  in  Japan,  and  who 
talked — including  the  interpreter — about 
two  hours,  in  answer  to  questions  about 
Buddhism,  especially  his  variety.  It  was 
very  interesting.  We  were  ushered  into  a 
Japanese  room,  beautiful  proportions,  a 
lovely  kakemono  in  the  alcove — it's  a  scroll, 
not  a  kimono — and  a  five-legged  little  table 
made  of  metal  with  mother-of-pearl  inlay. 
Otherwise  nothing  but  the  room  with  gor- 
geous blue  and  gold  chrysanthemums  alter- 
nating on  the  paneled  ceiling  and  five  silk 
cushions  scattered  around  for  us  to  sit  on, 
and  a  single  one  at  the  end  of  the  room  for 
him.  In  about  five  minutes  another  screen 
door  opened  and  he  appeared  in  a  gorgeous 
but  simple  flowing  robe,  copper  colored. 
Then  tea  and  sponge  cake — meantime  the 
talk  fest  had  begun.  Incidentally  I  should 
remark  that  the  bowing  and  kneeling  of  the 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    49 

servants  looks  much  more  natural  and  less 
servile  when  you  see  people  seated  on  the 
floor,  and  the  servants  have  to  kneel  to  hand 
them  anything.  His  personality  is  that  of  a 
scholarly  type,  rather  ascetic,  not  over  re- 
fined, but  not  in  the  least  sleek  like  some  of 
our  Hindu  swamis,  and  very  charming. 
When  we  left  he  thanked  us  for  coming  and 
expressed  his  great  satisfaction  that  he  had 
made  some  friends.  His  talk  was  largely 
moral  but  with  a  high  metaphysical  flavor, 
somewhat  elusive,  and  reminding  one  of 
Royce.  Well  it  was  an  experience  worth 
having,  as  he  is  reputed  the  most  learned 
and  representative  Buddhist  in  Japan,  and 
as  I  have  remarked  before,  seeing  is  quite 
different  from  reading.  He  was  more  mod- 
ern than  Royce  in  one  respect ;  he  said  God 
is  the  moral  ideal  in  man  and  as  man  de- 
velops the  divine  principle  does  also.  We 
saw  the  big  fifty-foot  bronze  statue  of 
Buddha,  in  some  respects  the  most  cele- 
brated single  thing  in  Japan  and  again  one 


50    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

you  have  to  see.     It  is  as  impressive  as  a 
cathedral. 

We  have  been  to  a  dinner  party  since  I 
began  this.  Our  host  seems  to  be  a  universal 
genius — a  member  of  the  house  of  peers,  an 
authority  on  education,  an  orchid  fancier,  a 
painter  and  I  don't  know  what.  There  were 
over  twenty  at  table,  and  our  health  was 
drunk  in  champagne  with  a  little  speech, 
and  two  members  of  the  cabinet  were  there. 
The  Countess  is  the  mother  of  eight  chil- 
dren, and  looks  about  thirty  and  very  pretty 
for  thirty.  Three  or  four  of  the  little  girls 
were  about  before  and  after  dinner,  and, 
like  several  of  the  little  girls  of  the  new 
generation,  are  as  spontaneous  and  natural 
as  you  would  wish.  Acquired  characteris- 
tics are  certainly  hereditary  in  Japan,  for 
even  the  most  lively  and  spontaneous  chil- 
dren are  civilized.  Whatever  else  you  think 
about  the  Japanese  they  are  about  the  most 
highly  civilized  people  on  earth,  perhaps 
overcultivated.  I  asked  Mamma  when  these 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    51 

girls  would  undergo  the  clammifying  proc- 
ess and  have  all  their  life  taken  out  of  them, 
and  she  said  never  for  these  girls. 

President  TsTaruse  died  this  morning;  as 
he  had  cancer,  it  was  fortunate  he  did  not 
linger  longer.  He  was  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable men  in  Japan.  Two  days  before 
he  died  the  Empress  sent  him  a  present  of 
five  thousand  dollars  for  his  school — a  very 
great  tribute  and  one  which  will  help  the 
cause  of  woman's  education.  Speaking  of 
this  family  where  we  dined,  you  can  judge 
of  the  high  aristocracy  of  our  hosts  of  the 
evening  by  the  fact  that  when  they  showed 
us  the  dolls'  festival,  there  were  some  fine 
ones  which  had  been  sent  the  Countess  by 
the  Imperial  Princesses.  The  dolls  by  the 
way  are  never  played  with — they  are  works 
of  art  and  history  to  look  at.  These  children 
got  out  their  American  dolls,  of  which  they 
had  ten,  to  show  Mamma. 


52    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


March  5. 

I  have  now  given  three  lectures.  They 
are  a  patient  race ;  there  is  still  a  good-sized 
audience,  probably  five  hundred.  We  are 
gradually  getting  a  superficial  acquaintance 
with  a  good  many  people,  and  if  I  could  get 
two  or  three  weeks  free  from  lectures  to  pre- 
pare I  could  make  a  business  of  finding 
things  out,  but  as  it  is  I  only  accumulate  cer- 
tain impressions.  There  is  no  doubt  a  great 
change  is  going  on;  how  permanent  it  will 
be  depends  a  good  deal  upon  how  the  rest 
of  the  world  behaves.  If  it  doesn't  live  up 
to  its  peaceful  and  democratic  professions, 
the  conservative  bureaucrats  and  militarists, 
who  of  course  are  still  very  strong,  will  say 
we  told  you  so  and  there  will  be  a  backset. 
But  if  other  countries,  and  especially  our 
own,  behave  decently,  the  democratizing 
here  will  go  on  as  steadily  and  as  rapidly  as 
is  desirable. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    53 


TOKYO,  Monday,  March  10. 

Yesterday  we  had  our  first  taste  of  the 
Noh  drama.  We  got  there  before  nine  in 
the  morning,  and  I  left  before  two  to  go  to 
Mr.  Naruse's  funeral,  but  Mamma  stayed 
till  nearly  three  when  she  had  to  go  to  speak 
at  a  school.  Mamma  can  give  you  a  much 
more  intelligent  idea  of  it  than  I  can,  but 
the  building  is  a  kind  of  barnlike  structure 
— the  Elizabethan  theater  with  a  vengeance, 
and  no  stage  properties  except  some  little 
live  pines  and  a  big  painted  one,  and  except 
costumes  which  are  rich  and  expensive  and 
the  masks  which  are  likewise.  It  is  an 
acquired  taste,  but  one  which  can  be 
acquired  very  rapidly.  If  they  weren't  done 
with  such  extraordinary  art  and  technique 
they  would  probably  be  stupid,  to  a  for- 
eigner anyway,  but  as  it  is  they  are  fasci- 
nating, though  it  is  hard  to  say  what  the 
source  of  the  fascination  is  aside  from  the 


54    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

perfection  of  technique.  Conscious  control 
was  certainly  born  and  bred  in  Japan. 

Mr.  Naruse  had  a  very  strong  hold  on 
people,  and  his  funeral  was  an  event — all 
the  autos  and  most  of  the  'rickshas  in  Tokyo 
must  have  been  there,  and  some  eight  or  ten 
speakers,  and  even  to  me  who  could  under- 
stand nothing  it  was  very  impressive.  One 
of  the  civilized  things  is  that  before  the 
speaker  bowed  to  the  audience — and  they 
all  bowed  back — he  bowed  to  the  remains, 
which  were  in  a  coffin  on  the  platform  with 
flowers,  and  more  flowers  than  at  an  Amer- 
ican funeral. 

We  were  to  have  gone  to  Baron  Shi- 
busawa's  for  tea  and  dinner  this  afternoon, 
but  his  influenza  has  gone  into  pneumonia. 

To  go  back  to  Saturday.  The  reception 
was  pleasant.  We  met  the  Americans  who 
are  educators  and  in  the  missionary  schools 
and  colleges ;  intelligent  and  well  disposed,  so 
far  as  I  have  seen.  The  criticism  of  the  mis- 
sionaries seems  to  be  rather  cooked  up.  Just 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    55 

now  there  is  a  fuss  ovei  them  in  Korea,  be- 
cause there  is  some  agitation  going  on  there 
for  independence,  and  it  seems  to  have 
started  with  Koreans  who  had  been  in  mis- 
sionary schools.  The  missionaries  here  seem 
much  divided,  some  of  them  blaming  the 
missionaries  over  there,  saying  they  will 
bring  Christianity  into  disrepute  every- 
where in  Japan,  and  some  saying  that  it 
proves  Christian  teaching  amounts  to  some- 
thing and  that  it  will  have  a  good  effect  in 
improving  conditions,  leading  to  foreign 
criticism  and  publicity,  and  causing  the  Jap- 
anese to  modify  their  colonial  policy,  which 
seems  to  be  under  military  rather  than  civil 
control.  There  is  a  rumor  that  the  ex- 
Emperor  of  Korea  didn't  die  a  natural 
death,  but  committed  suicide,  with  the  hope 
of  putting  off  or  preventing  the  marriage  of 
his  oldest  son  to  a  Japanese  princess — they 
were  to  have  been  married  very  soon.  No 
one  seems  to  know  whether  the  story  was  in- 
Kented  to  encourage  the  revolutionaries  in 


56    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

Korea  or  has  truth  in  it.  Meanwhile  they 
say  the  wedding  is  going  to  take  place,  and 
the  Japanese  are  sorry  for  their  poor  prin- 
cess, who  is  sacrified  to  marry  a  foreigner. 

Thursday  evening  Mamma  invited  the 
X— — 's  and  some  others,  eight  including 
ourselves,  to  supper  in  a  Japanese  restaurant, 
a  beef  restaurant — they  are  all  specialized — 
where  we  not  only  sat  on  the  floor  and  ate 
with  chop  sticks,  but  where  the  little  slices 
of  thin  beefsteak  were  brought  in  raw  with 
vegetables  to  flavor,  and  cooked  over  a  little 
pan  on  a  charcoal  hibashi,  one  fire  to  each 
two  persons.  Naturally  it  was  lots  of  fun, 
a  kind  of  inside  picnic. 

Oh,  yes,  something  happened  Friday. 
We  went  to  the  Imperial  Museum  in  the 
morning  and  the  curator  showed  us  about— 
I  won't  describe  a  museum — but  on  the  way 
home  we  were  taken  into  a  pipe  store  and 
Mamma  purchased  three  little  Japanese 
pipes,  ladies'  pipes,  to  take  home.  Quite 
cunning,  and  the  dealer  said  this  was  the 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    57 

first  time  he  had  ever  sold  anything  to  a 
foreigner,  so  he  presented  her  with  a  little 
ladies'  pouch  and  a  pipe  holder,  both  made 
from  Holland  cloth,  not  anything  very 
precious,  but  probably  worth  as  much  as  her 
entire  purchase,  certainly  more  than  the 
profit  on  his  sales.  These  things  are  quite 
touching  and  an  offset  to  the  stories  about 
their  bad  business  methods,  because  it  is 
really  a  matter  of  hospitable  courtesy  to  the 
foreigner,  though  he  said  himself  they  gen- 
erally put  the  price  up  for  the  foreigner  on 
antiques. 


58    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


TOKYO,  Thursday,  March  14. 

We  have  just  had  a  mild  picnic.  Mamma 
has  a  slight  cold,  so  the  maids  brought  her 
supper  up  to  her  and  for  sociability  brought 
mine  up  too.  Mamma  got  out  a  Japanese 
phrase  book  and  pronounced  various 
phrases  to  them;  to  see  them  giggle  and 
bend  double,  no  theater  was  ever  so  funny. 
When  I  got  to  my  last  bite,  I  inquired  the 
name  of  the  food,  and  said  it  and  "Sayo- 
nara" — good  night.  This  old  gag  was  a 
triumph  of  humor.  They  are  certainly  a 
good-natured  people.  I  have  watched  the 
children  come  out  from  a  public  school  near 
here,  and  never  yet  have  I  seen  a  case  of 
bullying  or  even  of  teasing,  except  of  a  very 
good-natured  kind,  no  quarreling  and  next 
to  no  disputing.  Yet  they  are  sturdy  little 
things  and  no  mollycoddles.  To  see  a  boy 
of  ten  or  twelve  playing  tag  and  jumping 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    59 

ditches  with  a  boy  strapped  to  his  back  is  a 
sight.  There  are  no  public  rebukes  or  scold- 
ings of  the  children  or  even  cross  words,  to 
say  nothing  of  slappings,  no  nagging,  at 
least  not  in  public.  Some  would  say  that 
the  children  are  not  scolded  because  they 
are  good,  but  it  is  a  fair  guess  that  it  is 
the  other  way.  But  it  must  be  admitted 
that  so  far  as  amiable  exterior  and  cheerful- 
ness and  courtesy  is  concerned,  they  have 
no  bad  examples  set  them.  Some  foreign- 
ers say  all  this  is  only  skin  deep,  but  the 
manners  of  the  foreigners  who  say  these 
things  aren't  any  too  good  even  from  our 
standards.  Anyway,  skin  deep  is  better 
than  nothing  and  good  as  far  as  it  goes. 
However,  the  Japanese  say  that  their  cour- 
tesy is  reserved  for  their  friends  and  people 
they  know,  not  that  they  have  bad  manners 
to  strangers,  but  that  they  pay  no  attention 
to  them,  and  won't  go  out  of  their  way  to 
do  anything  for  them. 

I  told  about  the  man  who  made  Mamma 


60    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

a  present  when  she  bought  the  pipes. 
Yesterday  we  were  in  that  region  and 
Mamma  went  in  again  and  bought  another, 
and  paid  him  a  compliment  on  what  peo- 
ple said  about  the  present.  Whereupon 
he  gets  up  and  fishes  out  another  more  val- 
uable pouch,  somewhat  ragged  and  old,  the 
kind  the  actors  now  use  on  the  stage,  and 
offers  it.  Mamma  naturally  tries  to  avoid 
it,  but  can't.  He  informs  her  through  the 
friend  with  us  that  he  likes  Americans  very 
much.  An  international  matter  having 
been  made  of  it,  the  pouch  is  accepted,  and 
now  we  have  to  think  up  some  present  to 
give  him.  However,  we  have  told  this  story 
to  several  Americans  here,  and  they  say 
they  have  never  heard  anything  like  it. 

We  were  to  have  gone  to  the  Peeress's 
School  this  morning,  an  appointment  hav- 
ing been  made  to  show  us  about.  Mamma's 
cold  preventing  her  going,  we  had  somebody 
'phone  to  see  if  the  time  could  be  changed. 
And  this  afternoon  appear  for  her  some 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    61 

lovely  lilies  and  amaryllis — these  being  from 
people  we  had  never  seen.  A  Freudian 
would  readily  infer  how  bad  my  own  man- 
ners are  from  the  amount  I  talk  about  this. 
We  went  to  a  Japanese  restaurant  for 
supper.  This  was  a  fish  restaurant,  and  we 
cooked  the  fish  and  vegetables  ourselves,  but 
over  gas,  not  charcoal  this  time.  Then  we 
had  side  dishes,  fish,  lobster,  etc.,  innumer- 
able. Instead  of  bringing  you  in  a  bill  of 
fare  to  order  from,  the  coolie  brings  a  big 
tray  with  samples  of  everything  on  it,  and 
you  help  yourself.  One  tiling  was  abalones 
on  the  half  shell,  these  being  babies,  about 
like  our  clams,  but  not  so  tough,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  as  tough  as  the  big  ones.  I  didn't 
try  the  fried  devil  fish  and  other  luxuries, 
but  wandered  pretty  far  afield.  When  you 
have  leisure,  try  eating  lobster  in  the  shell 
with  chop  sticks.  You  will  resort  to  some- 
thing more  ancient  than  chop  sticks,  as  I 
did.  This  restaurant  is  quite  plebeian, 
though  it  has  a  great  reputation  for  its 


62    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

secret  recipe  for  the  sauce  the  fish  is  cooked 
in,  but  it  was  considerably  more  expensive 
than  the  other — probably  because  we  sam- 
pled so  many  side  dishes;  the  other  one  cost 
less  than  five  dollars  for  eight  people — good 
food  and  all  anybody  could  eat. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    63 


TOKYO,  March  14th. 

The  ceremony  of  breakfast  is  over,,  and 
I  am  sorry  again  you  cannot  all  share  in 
these  daily  festivals  which  add  so  much  to 
the  dignity  of  living.  We  are  now  study- 
ing Japanese  with  the  aid  of  the  maids.  I 
missed  going  to  the  Dolls'  Festival  at  a 
private  kindergarten  and  the  result — this 
morning  by  mail  a  postcard  from  the  chil- 
dren with  numerous  presents  made  by  them, 
all  dolls,  and  those  I  will  send  home,  as  they 
are  interesting.  With  the  presents  they 
say:  "We  made  cakes  and  prepared  for 
your  coming  and  we  were  in  the  depths  of 
despair  when  you  did  not  come.  Please 
come  another  time."  I  am  sure  there  is  no 
other  country  in  the  world  like  this.  The 
language  is  an  impossible  one.  The  way 
given  in  the  phrases  of  the  guide  book  is  the 
way  the  man  speaks.  So  when  I  stammer 


64    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

off  those  phrases  the  girls  are  literally 
tickled  to  death.  When  they  tell  me  what 
I  ought  to  say  in  the  more  elaborated 
polite  way  of  the  women,  then  I  am  floored. 
It  is  all  an  amusing  game  and  relieves  the 
watch  they  keep  on  each  bite  we  take  so  as 
to  be  ready  to  supply  more.  Everything 
they  do  is  marked  with  the  kindliest  attitude 
and  every  act  or  move  is  one  of  friendship. 
This  is  the  program  for  to-day:  Go  to 
lunch  at  the  house  of  some  missionaries, 
then  to  father's  lecture  at  3:30,  then  to 
dinner  for  University  of  Chicago  students. 
To-morrow  will  be  an  open  day  for  me  and 
the  little  secretary  will  take  me  shopping. 
The  big  department  store  is  the  fashionable 
place  where  all  the  noble  and  rich  buy  their 
kimonos,  and  I  may  supplement  my  second- 
hand attempts  with  a  new  one.  When  I 
get  to  Kyoto  I  hope  to  find  a  real  old  one, 
as  the  new  style  of  weave  are  infected  with 
foreign  influence.  The  other  evening  with 
Y we  found  a  little  shop  for  antiques 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    65 

which  is  a  gem  to  look  at.  An  old  man  and 
his  wife,  Y says  he  bets  they  are  Samu- 
rai, with  the  politeness  of  real  nobles,  and 
their  little  place  as  carefully  arranged  for 
beauty  as  if  it  were  their  home — which  it  is.  I 
broke  an  old  Kutani  plate  and  I  inquired  for 
one  there.  They  had  none,  but  we  looked  at 
their  things,  they  with  many  bows,  and  when 
we  left  said  we  were  sorry  to  have  troubled 
them  for  nothing.  They  replied,  "Please 
excuse  us  for  not  having  the  thing  you 
wanted." 

To-morrow  we  go  to  lunch  here  in  the 
neighborhood  with  a  very  clever  and  inter- 
esting family  (of  a  professor) .  None  of  the 
women  call,  at  least  none  of  the  married 
ones,  all  being  afraid  of  their  English  for 
one  reason,  but  I  am  learning  to  just  take 
things  as  they  come  and  not  to  bother  over 
formalities,  never  knowing  whether  that  is 
the  best  way  or  not.  The  wedding  of  last 
Tuesday  was  the  most  interesting  function 
I  have  seen.  The  marriage  ceremony  was 


6§    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

the  Christian  one.  The  company  repre- 
sented the  rich  and  fashionable  of  the  city. 
The  ladies  all  wear  black  crepe  kimonos, 
that  splendid  crepe  which  is  so  heavy,  next 
under  the  black  is  an  all  white  of  soft  china 

silk,  then  the  third  of  bright  color.    K 's 

was  that  bright  vermilion  red.  Her 
sleeves  were  not  very  long,  as  she  is  a 
mother,  but  the  young  girls  wear  bright 
colored  kimonos  and  long  sleeves  that 
almost  touch  the  floor.  The  bride  wears 
black,  too.  All  these  dress-up  kimonos 
have  decorations  in  color,  sometimes  em- 
broidered and  sometimes  dyed  on  the  lower 
points  of  the  front.  The  bride's  was  spread 
out  on  the  floor  around  her  just  like  the 
old  pictures,  embroidered  in  heavy  rose 
peonies,  her  undergarment  and  the  lining  of 
the  black,  in  rose  color.  Her  hair  was  done 
in  the  old  conventional  way  shown  in  the 
prints  with  the  long  pins  of  light  tortoise 
shell  with  bouquets  of  tiny  flowers  carved 
at  the  ends,  which  stuck  out  about  three 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    67 

inches,  making  a  crown  over  her  head.  The 
receiving  party  is  as  follows :  First,  father 
of  groom;  second,  mother  of  bride;  third, 
groom;  fourth,  bride;  fifth,  father  of  bride; 
sixth,  mother  of  groom.  The  line  is  straight 
and  the  bride  is  perfectly  arranged  like  an 
old  print,  she  and  the  groom  with  their  eyes 
cast  down.  As  each  person  passes,  they 
make  bows  all  along  the  line  at  once,  but 
they  do  not  move  hand  or  eyes  or  a  fold  of 
these  perfect  clothes.  I  forgot  to  say  the 
men,  unfortunately,  wear  European  dress. 
Then  we  moved  on  to  two  large  rooms,  the 
men  all  seated  and  smoking  in  one,  and  the 
women  in  the  other.  Those  who  knew  me 

were  very  kind.  Countess  H introduced 

me  to  the  bridesmaids;  at  least  they  would 
be  the  maids  at  home.  They  were  the  sisters 
and  young  relatives  all  dressed  in  the  most 
brilliant  kimonos  and  embroidered  and  dec- 
orated to  the  limit;  they  looked  like  all  the 
parrots  and  peacocks  and  paradise  and  blue 
birds  and  every  lovely  color  imaginable, 


68      LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

while  the  uniform  black  of  the  guests, 
decorated  with  the  pure  white  of  their  crests 
which  stand  out  in  such  a  group,  formed 
the  perfect  background,  free  from  all  the 
messiness  which  is  so  apparent  in  a  diversi- 
fied gathering  of  all  sorts  of  color  and  shape 
and  materials  in  our  land.  At  tea,  which 
was  very  elaborate  and  taken  sitting  at 
the  tables,  the  family  of  the  two  filled  one 
table,  a  long  one  at  the  end  of  the  room. 
The  bride  now  wore  a  green  kimono,  equally 
brilliant;  about  two  feet  away  from  her  sat 
the  groom,  both  in  the  middle  of  the  long 
table. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN      69 


TOKYO.  Thursday,  Marcfi  20. 

We  have  had  a  number  of  social  events 

this  week.  Tuesday  evening  General  H , 

who  speaks  no  English  but  who  came  over 
on  the  SMnyo  with  us,  gave  a  party  for 
us  in  the  gardens  of  the  Arsenal  Grounds. 
We  could  not  have  entered  the  Arsenal 
Grounds  in  any  other  way.  There  were 
about  twenty-five  people  there,  mostly 
Christian  Association  people,  and  the 
clergyman  of  the  Japanese  church  where  I 
had  spoken  the  night  before.  He  is  keen 
about  introducing  more  democracy  in 
Japan,  and  I  spoke  on  the  moral  meaning 
of  democracy.  Well,  the  garden  isn't  a 
garden  at  all  in  our  sense,  but  a  park,  and 
the  finest  in  Tokyo  outside  of  the  Imperial 
ones.  It  is  quite  different  from  the  minia- 
ture ones  we  know  as  Japanese  gardens, 
being  of  fair  size,  with  none  of  those  cun- 


TO     LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


ning  little  imitations  in  it;  big  imitations 
there  are  in  plenty,  as  it  was  a  fad  of  the 
old  landscapists,  as  you  might  know,  to  re- 
produce on  a  small  scale  celebrated  scenes 
elsewhere.  The  old  Daimyo,  who  built  this 
one  two  hundred  years  ago,  was  a  great  ad- 
mirer of  the  Chinese  and  reproduced  several 
famous  Chinese  landscapes  as  well  as  one 
from  Kyoto.  The  extraordinary  thing  is 
the  amount  of  variety  they  get  in  a  small 
space;  they  could  reproduce  the  earth,  in- 
cluding the  Alps  and  a  storm  in  the  Irish 
Channel,  if  they  had  Central  Park.  Every 
detail  counts ;  it  is  all  so  artistically  figured 
out  and  every  little  rock  has  a  meaning  of 
its  own  so  that  a  barbarian  can  only  get  a 
surface  view.  It  would  have  to  be  studied 
like  an  artist's  masterpiece  to  take  it  all  in. 
The  arsenal  factory  fumes  have  killed  many 
of  the  old  trees  and  much  of  the  glory  has 
departed. 

Probably  Mamma  has  written  you  that 
she  has  one  young  woman,  Japanese,  com- 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN      71 

ing  on  the  ship  with  us  under  her  care,  to 
New  York  to  study;  and  to-day  another 
young  lady  called,  and  said  she  wanted  to 
go  back  to  America.  About  the  young 

women  going  home  with  us,  Y said  we 

would  have  to  be  careful,  as  one  time  his 
mother  was  offered  seventeen  damsels  to 
escort  when  she  was  going  over,  of  whom 
she  took  three.  You  may  not  appreciate 
the  fact  that  going  to  America  to  study 
means  practically  giving  up  marriage;  they 
will  be  old  maids  and  out  of  it  by  the  time 
they  return — also  those  who  have  been  in 
America  do  not  take  kindly  to  having  a 
marriage  arranged  for  them.  At  a  lecture 
I  listened  to  yesterday,  a  Japanese  woman, 
close  to  thirty,  was  pointed  out  to  me  as 
about  to  get  married  to  an  American  archi- 
tect here.  There  are  exceptions,  but  this 
case  is  evidently  a  famous  romance.  The 
lecture  was  on  Social  Aspects  of  Shinto; 
Shinto  is  the  official  cult  though  not  the 
established  religion  of  Japan.  Although 


72     LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

nothing  is  said  that  wasn't  scientifically  a 
matter  of  course  to  be  said — I  mean  sup- 
posing it  was  scientifically  correct — one  of 
the  most  interesting  things  was  the  caution 
that  was  taken  to  avoid  publication  of  any- 
thing said.  On  one  side  the  Imperial 
Government  is  theocratic,  and  this  is  the 
most  sensitive  side,  so  that  historical  criti- 
cism or  analysis  of  old  documents  is  not 
indulged  in,  the  Ancestors  being  Gods  or 
the  Gods  being  Ancestors.  One  bureau- 
cratic gentleman  felt  sure  that  the  divine 
ancestors  must  have  left  traces  of  their  own 
language  somewhere,  so  he  investigated  the 
old  shrines,  and  sure  enough  he  found  OR 
some  of  the  beams  characters  different  from 
Chinese  or  Japanese.  These  he  copied  and 
showed  for  the  original  language — till  some 
carpenters  saw  them  and  explained  that 
they  were  the  regular  guild  marks. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN      73 


KAMAKURA,  Thursday,  March  27. 

This  weather  beats  Chicago  for  change- 
ableness.  Monday,  at  midnight,  it  was 
storming  rain;  when  we  got  up  the  next 
day  it  was  the  brightest,  warmest  day  we 
have  had.  We  spent  it  sightseeing  and  went 
out  without  an  overcoat.  The  magnolia 
trees  are  in  full  bloom.  Yesterday  and  to- 
day are  as  raw  March  days  as  I  ever  saw 
anywhere;  there  would  have  been  frost  last 
night  but  for  the  wind.  Tuberculosis  is  rife 
here  and  no  wonder. 

Three  of  the  University  professors  have 
called  on  me  this  morning.  They  wish  to 
arrange  in  every  detail  for  our  movements 
when  we  leave  here.  I  suppose  I  was  asked 
twenty  times  how  long  we  are  to  stay  in 
Kamakura.  When  I  said  I  didn't  know,  it 
depended  on  weather  and  other  things,  they 
said,  "Oh,  yes,"  and  in  five  minutes  asked 


74      LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

the  same  question  again.  Whether  they  ar- 
range everything  in  minute  detail  for  them- 
selves in  advance  or  whether  they  think  we 
are  helpless  foreigners  I  can't  make  out; 
some  of  both,  I  think.  But  they  can't  un- 
derstand that  we  can't  give  an  exact  date 
for  everything  we  are  going  to  do  till  we 
go  to  China.  At  the  same  time  I  never 
knew  anybody  to  change  their  own  plans, 
especially  socially,  as  much  as  they  do. 

There  is  a  great  anti- American  drive  on 
now;  seems  to  be  largely  confined  to  news- 
papers, but  also  stimulated  artificially  some- 
what, presumably  by  the  militaristic  faction, 
which  has  lost  more  prestige  in  the  last  few 
months  than  in  years,  with  a  corresponding 
gain  in  liberal  sentiment.  They  have  con- 
sequently found  it  necessary  to  do  some- 
thing to  come  back.  Criticism  of  the 
United  States  is  the  easiest  way  to  arrest 
the  spread  of  liberal  sentiments  and 
strengthen  the  arguments  for  a  big  mili- 
taristic party,  like  twisting  the  lion's  tail 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN      75 

with  us.  Discussion  about  race  discrimina- 
tion is  very  active  and  largely  directed 
against  the  United  States  in  spite  of  Aus- 
tralia and  Canada,  and  also  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  Chinese  and  Korean  immigration 
here  is  practically  forbidden,  and  they  dis- 
criminate more  against  the  Chinese  than  we 
do  against  them.  But  consistency  is  not 
the  strong  point  of  politics  in  any  country. 
Excepting  on  the  subject  of  race  discrimina- 
tion, foreigners  in  contact  with  Japanese 
do  not  find  the  anti- American  feeling  ^vhich 
is  expressed  in  papers.  If  the  Anglo- 
Japanese  treaty  of  alliance  should  lapse  be- 
cause of  the  League  of  Nations  or  anything 
else,  America  will  be  held  responsible,  even 
if  the  British  are  the  cause.  Two  years 
ago  there  was  a  similar  anti-British  drive 
here,  and  pretty  hard  bargains  were  driven 
with  the  British  ally  in  all  war  matters. 
Now  that  Germany  and  Russia  are  out  of 
it,  England  has  no  apparent  reason  for 
snuggling  up  much  and  the  shoe  is  on  the 


76      LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

other  foot.  Which  makes  the  attack  on  the 
U.  S.  all  the  more  stupid,  as  they  are  in- 
ternationally quite  lonely,  even  if  they  tie 
up  with  France  on  account  of  similar  Rus- 
sian interests,  financial  and  otherwise* 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN      77 


TOKYO,  Wednesday,  March  28. 

To-morrow  we  are  going  to  Kamakura 
again;  it  is  only  an  hour  and  a  half  from 
here.  We  are  going  to  take  a  little  trip  into 
the  mountain  and  hot-spring  district  also, 
but  the  cherry  blossom  season  is  much  ad- 
vanced, ten  days  earlier  than  usual,  and  we 
are  afraid  it  will  spring  itself  in  our  ab- 
sence if  we  go  far,  so  probably  we  shall  be 
back  here  in  a  few  days  for  about  a  week. 
Then  we  shall  take  a  five-day  trip  on  our 
way  to  Kyoto,  going  to  the  shrine  at  Ise. 
This  is  the  oldest  and  most  sacred  Shinto 
shrine  in  Japan,  which  means  that  it  is  the 
central  spot  for  imperial  ancestor  worship. 
Speaking  of  ancestors,  you  remember  our 
references  to  the  Count.  The  father  of  his 
first  wife  has  recently  been  made  a  Baron. 
Parliament  being  over,  the  Count  has  left 
for  the  southern  Island  to  inform  the  an- 


78      LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

cestors  of  his  first  wife,  who  are  buried  there, 
of  the  important  item  of  family  gossip.  The 
oldest  liberal  statesman  of  aristocratic  de- 
scent, who  was  quite  intimate  with  the  late 
Emperor,  won't  go  to  the  annual  meeting 
to  celebrate  the  granting  of  the  Constitu- 
tion by  the  late  Emperor  because  he  is  so 
disgusted  that  no  more  progress  has  been 
made  in  constitutionalism,  and  says  he  can- 
not meet  his  late  master  until  he  can  report 
progress  to  him.  Otherwise  he  would  be 
ashamed  to  meet  him  as  he  feels  responsible 
to  the  Emperor.  This  would  not  be  any 
place  for  a  spiritualist  to  earn  his  living. 
They  are  clear  past  mediums. 

We  have  chiefly  been  eating  lately.  I 
had  two  Japanese  meals,  a  la  chop  sticks, 
yesterday  and  one  to-day.  Luncheon  yes- 
terday at  a  restaurant,  where  we  had  lots 
of  things  you  never  heard  of,  to  say  nothing 
of  eating  them,  and  a  dinner  at  a  friend's. 
There  were  twelve  courses  at  table  and  two 
or  three  afterwards — not  counting  tea,  and 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN      79 

much  the  same  at  another  dinner  to-night. 
We  have  a  bill  of  fare  written  on  fans,  only 
in  Japanese,  and  little  silver  salt  cellars  as 
souvenirs  besides.  One  feature  of  both 
dinners  was  soup  three  times,  at  the  begin- 
ning, about  the  middle  and  again  at  closing, 
at  these  functions  rice  is  not  served  till 
near  the  last  course.  Then  there  were  one 
or  two  semi-soupy  courses  thrown  in.  I 
can  eat  raw  fish  and  ask  no  questions;  and 
in  a  bird  restaurant,  Sunday  for  luncheon, 
I  ate  raw  chicken  wrapped  in  seaweed; 
abalone  is  my  middle  name,  and  some  of 
the  shell  fish  we  eat  is  probably  devil  fish. 
We  have  been  here  over  six  weeks  now, 
and  in  taking  an  inventory  it  can  be  said 
that  while  we  have  not  done  as  much  sight- 
seeing as  some  six-day  tourists,  I  think  we 
have  seen  more  Japanese  under  normal 
home  conditions  than  most  Americans  in  six 
months,  and  have  seen  an  unusually  large 
number  of  people  to  talk  to,  not  the  official 
crowd  but  the  representative  intellectual 


80     LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

liberals.  I  have  seen  less  but  found  out 
more  than  I  ever  expected  about  Japanese 
conditions,  which  is  quite  the  opposite  of 
European  experience  in  traveling.  When  I 
come  back  I  shall  try  to  see  a  few  of  the 
official  people,  since  I  now  know  enough 
to  judge  what  they  may  say.  On  the  whole, 
America  ought  to  feel  sorry  for  Japan,  or 
at  least  sympathetic  with  it,  and  not  afraid. 
When  we  have  so  many  problems  it  seems 
absurd  to  say  they  have  more,  but  they  cer- 
tainly have  fewer  resources,  material  and 
human,  in  dealing  with  theirs  than  we  have, 
and  they  have  still  to  take  almost  the  first 
step  in  dealing  with  many  of  them.  It  is 
very  unfortunate  for  them  that  they  have 
become  a  first-class  power  so  rapidly  and 
with  so  little  preparation  in  many  ways;  it 
is  a  terrible  task  for  them  to  live  up  to  their 
position  and  reputation  and  they  may  crack 
under  the  strain. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN      81 


TOKYO,  Tuesday,  April  1. 

The  Japanese  do  one  thing  that  we 
should  do  well  to  imitate.  They  teach  the 
children  in  school  a  very  nice  lesson  about 
the  beauty  and  the  responsibility  of  being 
polite  and  kind  to  the  foreigner,  like  being 
so  to  the  guests  of  your  own  house.  This 
adds  to  the  national  dignity. 

Yesterday  the  Emperor  got  out  and  I 
caught  him  at  it.  Quite  an  amazing  and 
lucky  experience  for  me  and  no  harm  to 
him,  as  I  had  not  known  he  ever  went  out 
before  I  picked  him  up  in  the  street.  I  went 
down  our  hill  as  usual  with  a  friend  to  take 
the  car.  At  this  side  of  the  street  where  the 
car  passes,  we  walk  across  the  bridge  on 
the  canal  and  then  turn  and  walk  one  block 
to  the  car  stop.  When  we  got  to  the  other 
side  of  the  bridge  all  the  people  on  both 
sides  of  the  street  were  massed  in  a  nice 


82      LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

little  quiet  line  and  three  policemen  were 
carefully  and  gently  placing  each  one  ac- 
cording to  his  height  so  he  could  see  as  well 
as  possible.  So  we  lined  in  with  the  rest 
while  the  policeman  looked  on  in  an  en- 
couraging fashion.  Nobody  spoke  out  loud, 
and  after  I  had  noticed  the  friend  with  me 
having  a  conversation  with  the  officer,  I 
ventured  to  ask  why  we  were  left  standing 
there.  With  the  same  quiet,  she  said :  "The 
Emperor  is  passing  on  his  way  to  the 
commencement  exercises  of  Waseda  Uni- 
vesity."  Well,  you  could  have  knocked  me 
over  with  a  feather.  I  don't  suppose  I 
should  have  known  what  was  happening  at 
all  unless  I  could  have  figured  it  out  from 
the  Chrysanthemums  on  the  carriage 
doors.  I  said  to  her:  "How  is  he  coming, 
in  an  automobile?  How  long  are  we  to 
stand  here?"  I  had  visions  of  the 
stories  about  the  streets  being  cleared, 
and  the  doors  shut  for  some  hours  while 
white  sand  was  sprinkled  over  the  car 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN      83 

tracks,  and  all  the  rest.  "No,"  she  said, 
"just  a  little  time."  I  saw  by  now  that  I 
was  not  likely  to  have  much  gossip  poured 
out  to  me  about  the  Emperor,  so  I  just 
fixed  a  nice  little  thing  about  three  years 
old  in  front  of  me  and  then  we  waited  with 
the  rest  of  the  school  children.  Soon  the 
procession  came,  first  a  body  of  horse  in 
plain  khaki  uniforms,  then  one  very  Japa- 
nese-looking man  alone  on  the  back  seat 
in  one  of  the  light  victorias,  very  clean  and 
shiny,  with  the  Chrysanthemums  on  the 
door.  He  was  dressed  in  a  khaki  wool  uni- 
form just  like  the  rest  of  the  army  with  a  cap 
on  his  head.  Then  came  some  other  shiny, 
light  little  victorias  with  two  horses,  all  just 
alike.  I  rubbered  my  best  and  I  had  a  very 
good  look  at  the  one  little  man  alone  in  the 
middle  of  the  seat,  and  sitting  up  and  look- 
ing straight  ahead  of  him  pleasantly.  In 
the  midst  of  the  passing  I  asked  the  com- 
panion with  me,  "Which  is  the  Emperor?" 
and  she  answered  "The  one  in  the  first  car- 


84      LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

riage,"  and  still  there  was  that  quiet  of 
perfect  breeding;  and  by  and  by  all  the  nice 
little  soldiers  on  horseback  passed,  and  after 
I  had  stood  a  little  longer  on  the  edge  of 
my  bridge  I  started  our  little  procession 
moving  towards  the  car.  The  Emperor  had 
gone  the  opposite  way.  After  a  little  I 
said:  "I  did  not  know  the  Emperor  went 
to  commencements  and  things  like  that," 
and  I  chattered  on,  and  then  my  companion 
said  in  her  slow,  proper,  calm  tone:  "That 
is  my  first  experience  to  see  the  Emperor, 
too."  And  I  said  "Is  that  so?"  and  asked 
some  more  questions,  still  wondering  that 
no  one  had  called  out  a  Banzai  nor  made  a 
sound,  and  it  is  not  till  to-day  that  I  learned 
that  all  the  people  were  standing  with  their 
eyes  cast  down  to  the  ground,  and  that  I 
was  the  only  one  who  looked  at  the  Em- 
peror, and  their  reverence  was  so  great  that 
that  was  the  reason  I  had  not  heard  them 
breathe.  For  another  thing,  Waseda  is  the 
liberal  university  and  private,  so  I  won- 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN      85 

dered  still  till  I  learned  then  that  the 
Emperor  was  going  to  the  Peers'  School 
commencement,  and  that  is  the  one  com- 
mencement he  goes  to  every  year.  So  you 
see  I  had  luck,  and  my  conscience  was  clear 
for  having  rubbered,  and  I  have  seen  the 
Emperor. 

The  Imperial  Garden  party  comes  off 
the  week  after  we  leave  Tokyo.  To  this 
party  all  the  nobles  of  the  third  rank  and 
above,  and  all  the  professors  in  the  Im- 
perial University,  and  all  the  foreigners  of 
latest  arrival,  are  asked.  So  a  foreigner 
can  go  just  once  and  no  more  unless  a  Pro- 
fessor. We  put  our  names  down  in  the 
Ambassador's  book  for  an  invitation  before 
we  knew  all  the  niceties  of  the  case.  So 
now  that  we  have  learned  that  we  can  go 
once  and  no  more,  and  that  we  are  expected 
to  go  if  we  are  invited,  we  will  take  back 
our  request  for  an  invitation  as  the  party 
is  on  the  17th  of  April,  and  we  are  to  be 
in  Kyoto  on  the  15th.  So  in  our  good  luck, 


86      LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

a  daughter  of  a  Baron,  who  is  a  member  of 
the  Imperial  household,  has  asked  us  to  go 
with  her  to-morrow  to  see  the  Imperial 
Garden  where  the  party  is  to  be  and  we 
may  see  the  gardens  all  the  better.  This 
Imperial  Garden  is  one  of  the  prince's 
gardens  and  not  the  one  behind  the  moat 
where  the  Emperor  lives.  It  seems  the  fall 
chrysanthemum  party  is  in  that  garden, 
though  never  inside  the  inner  moat  where 
no  one  goes  unless  he  has  an  audience.  The 
moat  and  the  surroundings  of  the  palace 
are  lovely,  but  as  you  can  read  the  guide 
book  if  you  want  a  description,  I  will  not 
bore  you  with  an  attempt.  The  walls  of 
the  moat  were  built  by  labor  of  the  feudal 
dependencies,  and  like  all  such  labor  it 
spared  no  pains  to  be  splendid.  Some  of 
the  moats  have  been  filled  up  long  ago,  but 
there  are  still  three  around  the  palace.  In- 
side the  outer  one  you  may  walk  part  of  the 
time  and  see  the  grand  gates  with  their 
solemn  guards.  In  these  gardens  the  air  is 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN      87 

fresh  and  the  birds  sing  in  the  trees,  and 
the  dust  of  the  city  never  gets  there. 

To-night  I  am  wearing  tabi,  those  nice 
little  toe  socks  which  will  not  fit  my  feet, 
but  which  are  so  much  nicer  than  the  felt 
toe  slippers  that  fall  off  your  feet  every 
time  you  go  upstairs.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
I  wear  ordinary  house  slippers  in  this  house, 
but  it  is  nicer  not  to  and  we  always  take 
them  off  when  we  come  in  from  outdoors. 
Truly,  the  Japanese  are  a  cleaner  people 
than  we  are.  Have  I  told  you  we  bathe  in 
a  Japanese  tub?  Every  night  a  hot,  very 
hot  wooden  box  over  three  feet  deep  is  filled 
for  us.  This  one  has  water  turned  in  from 
a  faucet,  but  in  Kamakura  the  little  char- 
coal stove  is  in  the  end  of  the  tub  and  the 
water  is  carried  in  by  buckets,  and  is  re- 
heated each  night.  It  seems  all  right  and 
I  regret  all  the  years  our  country  went 
without  bath  tubs,  and  all  the  fuss  we  made 
to  get  them  when  this  little,  simple  device 
was  all  there  and  as  old  as  the  hills.  But 


88      LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

we  can  catch  up  with  the  heating  and  cook- 
ing with  charcoal  hibashi. 

We  have  learned  to  eat  with  chop  sticks 
very  well,  and  it  is  not  a  bad  way.  The 
main  objection  I  see  to  it  is  that  one  eats 
too  fast,  and  Fletcherizing  is  not  known  in 
this  country.  The  nice  little  way  of  doing 
your  own  cooking  is  something  to  introduce 
for  cuteness  in  New  York.  These  last  few 
days  we  have  just  been  sight-seeing  in  the 
real  European  sense,  running  about  town 
and  buying  small  things  all  day  and  then 
having  the  wonderful  advantage  of  coming 
back  to  this  delightful  home  of  perfect  com- 
fort at  night,  which  is  quite  unlike  Europe, 
and  spoils  us  for  the  common  lot  of  knock- 
ing about. 

The  greatest  actor  of  the  country  is  here. 
He  belongs  in  Osaka,  his  name  is  Ganjiro, 
and  we  have  a  box  for  Thursday.  The  play 
is  the  one  that  was  given  in  New  York 
called  "Bushido."  It  is  much  longer  than 
as  given  there.  It  is  called  by  another 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN      89 

name  and  is  acted  quite  differently.  On 
Sunday  we  are  going  again  to  the  Noh 
Dance,  or  if  no  good  tickets  are  to  be  had 
for  that,  we  are  going  to  a  theater  where 
women  act  all  the  parts  to  offset  the  usual 
way  here  of  having  only  men  in  the  com- 
pany. The  men  who  act  women's  parts 
here  do  make  up  very  well.  They  live  and 
dress  and  act  as  women  all  the  time  so  as 
not  to  lose  the  art.  Only  when  they  stand 
in  pose  they  cannot  conceal  the  fact  that 
they  are  men.  The  play  begins  at  one  in 
the  afternoon  and  lasts  until  ten  at  night. 
Tea  and  dinner  is  brought  into  your  box 
in  those  nice  little  lacquer  lunch  boxes. 
Ganjiro  is  on  the  stage  in  every  scene  for 
eight  hours,  so  you  can  see  the  actors  work 
for  their  art  here.  The  costumes  are 
superb,  but  the  actors  do  not  simply  strut 
to  show  off.  Their  speech  being  very  af- 
fected in  manner  they  have  had  to  depend 
upon  expression  to  get  results,  and  as  a 
consequence  their  acting  is  done  with  their 


90     LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

entire  body  more  than  any  other  school  in 
the  world.  The  best  ones,  like  the  ones  we 
are  to  see,  can  express  any  emotion,  so  'tis 
said,  with  their  backs  and  the  calves  of  their 
legs  when  you  can't  see  their  faces. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN      91 


TOKYO,  April  1. 

Our  activities  of  late  have  been  miscel- 
laneous ;  we  spent  three  days,  counting  com- 
ing and  going  four  days,  at  Kamakura  last 
week.  It  is  on  the  seaside  and  is  a  great 
resort,  summer  and  winter,  for  the  Japanese, 
and  at  the  hotel  for  Europeans  over  week- 
ends. For  summers  the  foreigners  go  to 
the  mountains,  while  the  Japanese  take  to 
the  seaside,  largely  because  there  is  more 
for  the  children  to  do  on  the  seashore,  but 
partly  because  mountains  seem  to  be  an 
acquired  taste.  Kamakura  is  about  ten  de- 
grees warmer  than  Tokyo,  as  it  is  sheltered 
by  the  hills.  Peas  were  in  blossom  and  the 
cherry  trees  all  out.  It  was  cold  and  rainy 
while  we  were  there,  however,  except  one 
day,  when  we  crowded  in  so  much  sight- 
seeing we  got  rather  tired.  Mamma  and  I 
are  now  catching  up  on  calls,  prior  to  leav- 


92      LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

ing  and  doing  some  sightseeing.     To-day 
we  went  to  a  shop  where  they  publish  very 
fine  reproductions  of  the  old  art  of  Japan, 
including     Chinese    paintings     owned     in 
Japan,  much  better  worth  buying  than  the 
color    print    reproductions    to    my    mind, 
though  we  have  laid  in  some  reproductions 
of  the  latter.    There  are  so  many  million- 
aires made  by  the  war  in  Japan,  that  lots 
of  the  old  lords  are  selling  out  part  of  their 
treasures  now;  prices  I  think  are  too  high 
even    for    Americans.      The    old   Daimyo 
families    evidently    have    enough    business 
sense   to   take   advantage   of   the   market, 
though  some  are  hard  up  and  sell  more  for 
that  reason.    A  week  ago  we  went  to  an 
auction  room  where  there  was  a  big  collec- 
tion of  genuine  old  stuff,  much  finer  than 
appears  in  the  curio  shops,  and  this  week- 
end there  is  another  big  sale  by  a  Marquis. 
However,    it   is   said   they   keep   the   best 
things  and  unload  on  the  nouveau  riche ;  not 
but  what  a  lot  of  it  is  mighty  good  as  it  is. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN      93 

My  other  experience  that  I  have  not 
written  about  is  seeing  Judo.  The  great 
Judo  expert  is  president  of  a  normal  school, 
and  he  arranged  a  special  exhibition  by 
experts  for  my  benefit,  he  explaining  the 
theory  of  each  part  of  it  in  advance.  It 
took  place  Sunday  morning  in  a  big  Judo 
hall,  and  there  were  lots  of  couples  doing 
"free"  work,  too;  they  are  too  quick  for  my 
eye  in  that  to  see  anything  but  persons  sud- 
denly thrown  over  somebody's  back  and 
flopped  down  on  the  ground.  It  is  really 
an  art.  The  Professor  took  the  old  prac- 
tices and  studied  them,  worked  out  their 
mechanical  principles,  and  then  devised  a 
graded  scientific  set  of  exercises.  The  sys- 
tem is  really  not  a  lot  of  tricks,  but  is  based 
on  the  elementary  laws  of  mechanics,  a 
study  of  the  equilibrium  of  the  human  body, 
the  ways  in  which  it  is  disturbed,  how  to  re- 
cover your  own  and  take  advantage  of  the 
shiftings  of  the  center  of  gravity  of  the 
other  person.  The  first  thing  that  is  taught 


94      LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

is  how  to  fall  down  without  being  hurt,  that 
alone  is  worth  the  price  of  admission  and 
ought  to  be  taught  in  all  our  gyms.  It  isn't 
a  good  substitute  for  out-of-door  games, 
but  I  think  it  is  much  better  than  most  of 
our  inside  formal  gymnastics.  The  mental 
element  is  much  stronger.  In  short,  I  think 
a  study  ought  to  be  made  here  from  the 
standpoint  of  conscious  control.  Tell  Mr. 
Alexander  to  get  a  book  by  Harrison — a 
compatriot  of  his — out  of  the  library,  called 
"The  Fighting  Spirit  of  Japan."  It  is  a 
journalist's  book,  not  meant  to  be  deep,  but 
is  interesting  and  said  to  be  reliable  as  far 
as  it  goes.  I  noticed  at  the  Judo  the  small 
waists  of  all  these  people;  they  breathe  al- 
ways from  the  abdomen.  Their  biceps  are 
not  specially  large,  but  their  forearms  are 
larger  than  any  I  have  ever  seen.  I  have 
yet  to  see  a  Japanese  throw  his  head  back 
when  he  rises.  In  the  army  they  have  an 
indirect  method  of  getting  deep  breathing 
which  really  goes  back  to  the  Buddhist  Zen 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN      95 

teaching  of  the  old  Samurai.  However, 
they  have  adopted  a  lot  of  the  modern 
physical  exercises  from  other  armies. 

The  gardens  round  here  are  full  of  cherry 
trees  in  blossom — and  the  streets  are  full  of 
people  too  full  of  sake.  The  Japanese  take 
their  drunkenness  apparently  seasonly,  as 
we  hadn't  seen  drunken  people  till  now. 


96     LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


TOKYO,  April  2. 

We  have  had  another  great  day  to-day. 
This  morning  rose  early  and  wrote  letters, 
which  were  not  sent  in  spite  of  the  haste,  as 
we  decided  the  slow  boat  was  slower  than 
waiting  for  a  later  and  faster  one.  So  you 
ought  to  get  many  letters  at  once.  The  day 
has  been  sunshiny  and  bright,  but  not  at  all 
sultry,  so  perfect  for  getting  about.  We 
went  to  the  art  store  to  get  some  prints 
which  we  had  selected  the  day  before  and 
then  on  to  call  on  a  Professor  of  Political 
Economy,  who  is  also  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment, radical  and  very  wide  awake  and  in- 
teresting, quite  like  an  American  in  his 
energy  and  curiosity  and  interest.  We 
visited  and  learned  a  lot  about  things  here 
and  there  and  then  he  took  us  to  lunch  at 
his  mother-in-law's  house.  They  have  a 
beautiful  house  in  Japanese  style,  with  a 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN      97 

foreign  style  addition,  like  most  of  the 
houses  of  the  rich,  the  Japanese  part 
having  no  resemblance  whatever  to  the 
foreign,  which  is  so  much  less  beautiful. 
In  carpets  and  table  covers  and  tapestries 
imitated  from  the  German,  the  Japanese 
have  no  taste,  while  in  their  own  line  they 
remain  exquisite.  This  house  is  one  of  the 
most  absolute  cleanliness.  Xo  floor  in  it  but 
shines  like  a  mirror  and  has  not  a  fleck  of 
dust,  never  had  one.  Let  me  see  if  I  can 
describe  accurately  this  entertainment.  We 
took  three  'rickshas  and  rode  through  the 
cherry  lined  narrow  streets  over  hills  where 
are  the  lovely  gardens  of  the  rich  showing 
through  the  gateways  and  showing  over  the 
top  of  the  bamboo  walls,  which  are  built  of 
poles  about  six  feet  long  upright  and  tied 
together  with  cords.  They  are  very  pretty 
with  the  green.  When  we  reached  the  house 

Mr.  U took  us  in  to  the  foreign  drawing 

room,  which  is  very  mid- Victorian  and  Ger- 
man in  its  general  effect.  This  one  has  in 


98      LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

it  a  beautiful  lacquer  cabinet,  very  large  and 
quite  overpowering  every  other  thing  in  the 
room.  There  the  ladies  of  the  house  came 
in  and  made  their  bows,  very  amiable  and 
smiling  at  our  thanks  for  their  hospitality. 
The  sister-in-law,  a  young  girl  of  sixteen, 
who  wants  to  go  to  America,  and  afterwards 
the  grandmother,  very  much  the  command- 
ing character  that  a  grandmother  ought  to 
be.  The  children  hovered  round  them  all 
much  like  our  children.  The  ladies  brought 
us  tea  with  their  own  hands  in  lovely  blue 
and  white  cups  with  little  lacquer  stands  and 
covers.  Candy  with  the  tea,  which  was 
green.  I  forgot  to  say  that  we  had  already, 

during  the  hour  with  Mr.  U had  tea  three 

different  times  and  of  three  different  kinds, 
besides  little  refreshments  therewith.  After 
a  little  we  were  summoned  to  lunch.  Three 
places  set  on  a  low  table  and  a  beautiful  blue 
brocade  cushion  to  sit  upon.  The  two 
younger  ladies  on  their  knees  ready  to  serve 
us.  They  poured  out  wine  for  us,  or  Ver- 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN      99 

mouth,  and  we  took  the  latter.  We  had 
before  us,  each,  one  lacquer  bowl,  covered, 
that  contained  the  usual  fish  soup  with  little 
pieces  of  fish  and  green  things  cut  up  in  it. 
This  we  drink,  putting  the  solid  bits  into 
our  mouths  with  the  chop  sticks.  The 
grandmother  thought  she  ought  to  have  pre- 
pared foreign  food,  but  the  clever  girl  of 
sixteen  had  spoken  for  home  food,  and  so 
we  thanked  them  for  giving  that  to  us,  as 
we  seldom  get  a  real  genuine  Japanese 
meal.  And  this  is  the  first  we  have  had 
where  we  were  served  by  the  ladies  of  the 
house,  except  the  dolls'  food  at  the  festival. 
It  seems  this  is  the  highest  compliment  that 
we  have  had,  as  the  real  Japanese  home  is 
open  to  the  foreigner  only  when  the  for- 
eigner is  asked  to  sit  on  the  floor  and  is 
served  by  the  ladies  of  the  household.  They 
kneel  near  the  table  and  the  maid  brings  the 
dishes  and  hands  them  to  the  ladies,  who  in 
turn  serve  the  dishes  to  the  guests.  It  is 
very  pretty.  I  have  reached  the  stage  where 


100    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

I  can  sit  on  my  heels  for  the  length  of  a 
meal,  but  I  rise  very  awkwardly,  as  my 
feet  are  asleep  clear  up  to  my  knees  at 
the  end.  We  ate  soup,  cold  fried  lobster 
and  shrimps,  which  are  dipped  in  sauce 
besides;  and  cold  vegetables  in  another 
bowl,  and  then  hot  fried  fish;  then  some 
little  pickles,  then  rice,  of  which  the 
Japanese  eat  several  bowls,  then  the  des- 
sert, which  has  been  beside  you  all  the 
time,  and  is  a  cold  omelette,  which  tastes 
very  good,  and  then  they  give  you  tea,  For- 
mosa oolong.  We  had  toast,  too,  but  that 
is  foreign.  Then  we  left  the  table  and  were 
shown  the  rooms  upstairs,  which  contain 
many  pieces  of  lacquer  and  bronze  and 
woodwork,  and  then  we  went  down  and 
there  was  tea  and  a  dish  of  fruit  ready  for 
us.  We  had  not  much  time  for  this,  as  they 
were  going  to  send  us  in  a  motor  to  the 
Imperial  Gardens.  But  as  the  last  kind  of 
tea  had  to  be  brought  we  were  at  the  door 
putting  on  our  shoes  when  it  arrived.  This 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    101 

tea  is  strong  oolong  and  has  milk  in  it,  with 
two  lumps  of  sugar  for  you  to  put  in  your- 
self. Thus  we  had  been  served  with  tea  six 
times  within  three  hours. 

It  is  hard  to  describe  the  Imperial  Gar- 
dens. Read  the  guide  book  and  you  will 
see  that  it  is.  Ten  thousand  orchid  plants 
were  the  beginning  of  the  sight.  We  saw 
the  lettuce  and  the  string  beans  and  the  to- 
matoes and  potatoes  and  eggplant  and 
melons,  and  all  growing  under  glass,  for  the 
Emperor  to  eat.  Never  saw  such  perfect 
lettuce,  all  the  heads  in  one  frame  of  exactly 
the  same  size  and  arrangement,  as  if  they 
were  artificial,  and  all  the  others  just  right. 
Why  potatoes  under  glass?  Don't  ask  me. 
Grapes  in  pots  looked  as  if  the  raising  of 
grapes  under  glass  was  in  its  beginning,  but 
maybe  not,  as  I  was  not  familiar  enough 
with  those  little  vines  to  know  whether  they 
would  bear  or  not.  The  flowers  in  the 
frames  were  perfection.  Masses  of  Mig- 
nonette daisies,  and  some  other  bright 


102    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

flowers  I  did  not  know  were  ready  to 
put  out  in  the  beds  which  were  pre- 
pared for  the  garden  party.  We  cannot  go 
on  the  17th.  A  very  large  pavilion  with 
shingle  roof  under  which  the  Emperor  and 
Empress  are  to  sit  at  the  party  is  being 
built  and  will  be  taken  down  the  next  day, 
or  rather  week,  as  it  will  take  more  than 
one  day.  Then  if  it  rains  there  will  be  no 
party.  To-night  it  looks  as  if  rain  might 
spoil  the  blossoms.  But  to-day  was  perfect. 
It  is  a  little  surprising  when  one  sees  this 
famous  garden  after  reading  about  Japan- 
ese gardens  for  all  one's  life.  There  is  such 
a  large  expanse  of  grass  with  no  flowers  and 
the  grass  does  not  get  green  here  so  soon  as 
with  us,  and  it  is  now  all  brown,  though  big 
masses  of  daffodils  are  superb.  These  under 
the  cherry  trees  with  the  sunshine  shining 
through  slantways  made  one  of  the  brilliant 
sights  of  a  lifetime.  The  artificial  lakes 
and  rivers  and  waterfall  and  the  bridges  and 
islands  and  hills  with  big  birds  walking  and 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    103 

swimming  make  enough  to  have  come  for  to 
Japan.  The  groups  of  trees  are  as  fine  as 
anything  can  be  and  across  the  long  ex- 
panses the  view  of  them  is  like  a  succession 
of  pictures.  There  are  a  hundred  and  sixty- 
five  acres  in  the  park,  no  buildings.  In  the 
beginning  it  was  pretty  well  to  one  side  of 
the  city,  but  now  it  is  on  a  car  track  of  much 
travel,  though  still  on  the  outskirts  on  its 
outer  edge. 

On  Monday  we  have  arranged  to  go  to 
the  theater  again  at  the  Imperial.  To-day 
it  is  the  great  actor  Ganjiro  at  a  small  the- 
ater. It  is  said  the  jealousy  of  the  Tokyo 
actors  and  managers  keeps  Gan j  iro  from  get- 
ting a  fair  chance  when  he  comes  here.  Mr. 

T ,  formerly  of  Chicago,  has  just  been 

here  to  try  to  arrange  a  dinner  for  us  before 
we  leave,  the  dinner  to  be  at  a  restaurant 
with  all  the  old  students  present.  The  res- 
taurants are  always  amusing  and  we  agreed, 
of  course.  This  may  keep  us  in  Tokyo  one 
day  longer,  though  that  is  not  decided  yet. 


104    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

For  the  rest  of  the  time  we  are  to  make 
up  on  calls  as  far  as  we  can  and  ride  about 
to  see  the  cherry  blossoms,  and  I  hope  we 
may  see  some  of  the  famous  tea  houses. 
Thus  far  we  have  seen  no  tea  house  at  all, 
and  there  is  not  one  afternoon  tea  house 
where  ladies  go  in  this  city  excepting  the 
new-fashioned  department  stores,  and  they 
do  not  stand  for  anything  different  than 
they  do  with  us.  This  shows  how  little  the 
real  ladies  of  Tokyo  go  out  of  their  houses. 
The  Suniida  river  is  a  big  river  gathering 
up  all  the  small  streams  from  one  side  of 
the  mountains.  It  is  full  of  junks  and  other 
craft  and  is  the  center  of  much  history,  both 
for  Tokyo  as  a  city  and  for  the  whole 
country. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    105 


TOKYO,  April  4. 

Ganjiro,  the  greatest  actor  from  Osaka, 
is  acting  here  now,  and  the  show  was  great. 
He  did  the  scene  among  other  things  they 
did  in  New  York  under  the  name  of  "Bush- 
ido."  A  dance  by  a  fox  who  had  taken  the 
form  of  a  man  was  a  wonderful  thing. 
There  is  no  use  in  trying  to  describe  it,  It 
was  not  just  slow  posturings,  like  the 
other  Japanese  dances  we  have  seen,  nor 
was  it  as  wild  as  the  Russian  dancers; 
he  did  it  alone,  no  companion,  male  or 
female.  But  it  was  as  free  as  the  Rus- 
sian and  much  more  classic  at  the 
same  time.  You  will  never  realize  what  the 
human  hand  and  arm  can  do  until  you  see 
this.  He  put  on  a  number  of  masks  and 
then  acted  or  danced  according  to  the  type 
of  mask  he  had  on.  He  can  do  an  animal's 
motions  without  any  clawing — as  graceful 


106    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

and  lithe  as  a  cat.    He  is  a  son  of  an  old 
man  Ganjiro. 

Our  last  days  here  are  rather  crowded 
and  we  aren't  going  to  get  the  things  done 
that  should  be  done.  Cherry  blossoms  are 
at  their  height — another  thing  indescribable, 
but  if  dogwood  trees  were  bigger  and  the 
blossoms  were  .tinged  with  pink  without 
being  pink  it  would  give  the  effect  more 
than  anything  else  I  know.  The  indescrib- 
able part  is  the  tree  full  of  blossoms  without 
leaves;  of  course  you  get  that  in  the  mag- 
nolias, but  they  are  coarse  where  the  cherry 
is  delicate.  We  went  to  a  museum  to-day, 
which  is  finer  in  some  respects  than  the  Im- 
perial; gods  till  you  can't  rest,  and  wonder- 
ful Chinese  things,  everything  except  paint- 
ings. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    107 


TOKYO,  April  8. 

We  are  actually  packing  up  and  get  away 
to-morrow  morning  at  8:30 — we  travel  all 
day,  the  first  part  till  four  o'clock  on  the 
fastest  train  in  Japan.  The  ordinary  trains 
make  about  fifteen  miles  an  hour,  Japan 
having  unfortunately  adopted  narrow  gauge 
in  early  days  and  going  on  the  well-known 
principle  of  safety  first.  We  have  had  vari- 
ous and  sundry  experiences  since  writing,  the 
most  interesting  being  on  Sunday,  when  we 
were  taken  into  the  country  Uoth  to  see  the 
cherry  blossoms  and  the  merry-rnakers ;  the 
time  is  a  kind  of  a  carnival  and  rnjld  satur- 
nalia based  on  bright  clothes,  and  wigs, 
and  sake,  about  ninety  per  cent  sake. 
There  were  a  few  besides  ourselves  not  in- 
toxicated, but  not  many.  Everybody  prac- 
ticed whatever  English  he  knew  on  us,  one 
dressed-up  fellow  informing  us  "I  Chrallie 


108    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

Chaplin,"  and  he  was  as  good  an  imitation 
as  most.  Aside  from  one  fight  we  saw  no 
rudeness  and  not  much  Boisterousness,  the 
mental  effect  Being  apparently  to  make 
them  confidential  and  demonstrative. 
Usually  they,  are  very  reserved  with  one 
another,  but  Sunday  it  looked  as  if  they 
were  telling  each  other  all  their  deepest 
secrets  and  life  ambitions.  Dur  host  of  the 
day  laughed  most  benevolently  all  the  time, 
not  excluding  when  a  fellow  dressed  in 
bright  red  woman's  clothes  insisted  on  rid- 
ing on  the  running  board.  They  get  drunk 
so  seldom  that  it  didn't  appeal  to  him  so 
much  as  a  drunk  as  it  did  as  a  popular  fes- 
tival; the  people  really  were  happy. 

There  were  miles  of  trees  planted  each 
side  of  a  canal  that  supplies  Tokyo  with 
water,  all  kinds  of  trees  and  in  all  stages  of 
development,  from  no  blossoms  to  full,  no 
leaf  and  beautiful  little  pink  leaves.  The 
blossoms  are  dropping,  it  is  almost  a  mild 
snowfall,  and  yet  the  trees  seem  full. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    109 

Yesterday  we  went  to  the  theater  again, 
the  Imperial,  a  party  of  ten  filling  two 
boxes.  We  were  taken  behind  the  scenes 
and  shown  the  green  rooms,  etc.,  and  intro- 
duced to  an  actor  and  to  his  son,  about 
eleven,  who  appeared  on  the  stage  later  and 
did  a  very  pretty  dance.  He  had  a  teacher 
in  the  room  and  was  doing  his  Chinese  writ- 
ing lesson,  never  looked  up  till  he  was 
spoken  to,  about  the  handsomest  and  most 
intelligent  looking  lad  I  have  seen  in  Japan. 
Acting  is  practically  an  hereditary  profes- 
sion here.  I  doubt  if  an  outsider  not  trained 
from  early  childhood  could  possibly  do  the 
acting  anyway,  and  I  don't  think  the  guild 
would  let  him  break  in  if  he  could,  though 
one  man  of  British  extraction  has  been  quite 
successful  on  the  Japanese  stage.  We  saw 
some  very  interesting  things  yesterday,  in- 
cluding dances,  and  learned  that  they  are 
very  anxious  to  come  to  America,  but  they 
want  a  patron.  If  the  scenes  were  selected 
with  great  care  to  take  those  that  have  lots 


110    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

of  action  and  not  so  much  talking,  and  the 
libretto  was  carefully  explained,  they  could 
make  a  hit  in  New  York  at  least. 

Our  other  blowout  was  the  other  evening 
at  a  Japanese  classic  tea  house,  a  part  of  a 
Noh  dance  for  entertainment  and  a  twelve- 
course  meal  or  so.  The  most  interesting 
thing  though  is  talking  to  people.  On  the 
whole  I  think  we  have  a  chance  to  see  people 
who  know  Japan  much  better  than  most. 
We  haven't  been  officialized  and  putting  the 
different  tilings  together  I  think  we  have  as 
good  an  acquaintance  with  the  social  con- 
ditions as  anybody  would  be  likely  to  get 
in  eight  weeks.  An  experienced  journalist 
could  get  it,  so  far  as  information  is  con- 
cerned, in  a  few  days,  but  I  think  things 
have  to  be  soaked  in  by  cumulative  impres- 
sions to  get  the  feel  of  the  thing  and  the 
background.  When  they  told  me  first  that 
this  was  a  great  psychological  moment,  that 
everything  was  critical  and  crucial,  I  didn't 
know  what  they  meant,  and  I  could  hardly 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    111 

put  it  in  words  now,  any  more  than  they 
did,  but  I  know  inside  of  me.  There  are 
few  external  signs  of  a  change,  but  Japan 
is  nearly  in  the  condition  she  was  in  during 
the  first  years  of  contact  and  opening  up  of 
things  fifty  or  so  years  ago,  so  far  as  the 
mental  readiness  for  change  is  concerned, 
and  the  next  few  years  may  see  rapid  social 
changes. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


NARA,  April  12. 

Well,  we  have  started  on  our  journey  and 
have  seen  Japan  for  the  first  time,  scenically 
speaking,  that  is  to  say.  The  first  day's 
ride  from  Tokyo  to  Nagoya  was  interesting, 
but  not  particularly  so  except  for  Fuji, 
which  we  saw  off  and  on  for  several  hours, 
and  on  three  sides.  As  sometimes  it  isn't 
visible,  and  we  had  a  fine  warm  day,  we  had 
good  luck.  Nagoya  is  where  the  best  old 
castle  in  Japan  is,  you  may  even  in  your  be- 
nighted country  and  estate  have  heard  of 
the  two  golden  dolphins  on  top.  The  castle 
is  an  imperial  palace  and  it  turned  out  that 
you  have  to  have  a  permit  from  Tokyo,  but 
we  set  out  to  try  to  get  in,  and  as  we  had 

met  a  nice  young  man  at  the  X 's  in 

Tokyo  who  came  from  Nara,  we  telephoned 
him,  and  while  we  didn't  get  in  through  him 
(he  said  he  could  never  get  in  himself  under 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    113 

any  circumstances)  he  promptly  asked  us  to 
dinner.  Then  we  were  taken  to  the  swellest 
tea  house  in  Nara  and  had  another  of  those 
elaborate  dinners,  on  what  he  called  the  tea- 
istic  plan.  We  hegan  with  the  tea  ceremony 
without  the  ceremony  hut  with  the  pow- 
dered tea,  the  bowl  being  prepared  for  each 
one  separately  in  succession.  The  Nara 
cooking  is  better,  we  all  thought,  than  the 
Tokyo,  the  food  being  more  savory  and  the 
variety  of  flavors  greater,  an  opinion  which 
pleased  our  host.  Expressing  some  curi- 
osity about  some  four-inch  trout  which 
seemed  to  have  a  sugar  caramel  coating,  we 
found  that  they  were  cooked  in  a  kind  of 
liquor  which  deposited  the  sweetness,  and 
then  we  were  presented  with  a  bottle  of  the 
drink  known  as  Mirin,  so  now  we  are  lug- 
ging glassware.  Then  after  the  dinner  he 
said  that  he  hoped  that  we  would  not  think 
him  guilty  of  improper  action,  but  that  he 
had  invited  the  best  samisen  player  and 
singer  in  Nagoya,  and  also  some  dancers. 


114    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

In  other  words,  some  geishas  were  intro- 
duced and  sang,  played  and  danced  before 
King  David.  There  are  all  grades  from 
those  comparable  to  chorus  girls  at  Jack's  to 
high  grade  actresses,  and  these  were  of  the 
upper  kind.  He  said  he  wished  us  to  see 
something  of  true  Japan  which  few  for- 
eigners saw,  this  referring  to  the  restaurant 
as  well  as  the  dancing.  They  won't  receive 
anybody  who  isn't  an  old  client  or  friend 
of  one  of  these  high  toned  places.  But  the 
ladies  of  the  party  thought  he  was  especially 
interested  in  one  of  the  girls.  Personally  I 
think  the  dancing  and  music  are  much  more 
interesting  than  they  are  reported  to  be  in 
the  guide  books. 

The  next  day  we  went  to  the  primitive 
Ise  shrines,  arriving  cross  and  hungry  at 
about  two,  but  bound  to  get  the  pilgrimage 
over,  especially  as  it  wasn't  good  weather. 
Yamada,  where  the  sacred  shrines  are,  is  a 
very  beautiful  place,  with  wooded  hills  and 
little  streams.  The  trees  are  largely  cryp- 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    115 

tomerias,  which  are  evidently  some  relative 
of  the  California  redwoods,  and  while  not 
nearly  as  tall,  make  much  the  same  effect. 
It  is  a  darling  spot,  filled  with  the  usual 
thousands  of  carpet  bagger  (literally  the  old 
Brussel  carpet  bags)  pilgrims.  As  pre- 
viously reported  I  toted  a  borrowed  frock 
coat  and  stovepipe  hat.  Our  guide  said 
special  clothing  was  not  needed  for  the 
ladies.  I  put  on  my  war  paint,  and  the  chief 
priest  having  been  written  from  Toyko  of 
our  impending  arrival,  an  hour  had  been 
set.  At  the  outermost  gate,  the  Torii,  the 
ceremony  of  purification,  took  place.  We 
had  water  poured  out  on  our  hands  out  of 
a  little  ceremonial  cup  and  basin  and  then 
the  priest  sprinkled  salt  on  us ;  nobody  else 
had  this  but  us.  Then  when  we  got  to  the 
fence  gate,  we  were  told  that  the  ladies  not 
having  "visiting  dresses,"  whatever  they  are, 
couldn't  go  inside,  but  that  I  should  be 
treated  as  of  the  same  rank  as  an  Imperial 
professor  and  allowed  to  go.  I  forgot  to 


116    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

say  that  we  had  a  gendarme  in  front  of  us 
to  shoo  the  vulgar  herd  out  of  our  way. 
Then  we  marched  slowly  in  behind  the 
priest,  on  stones  brought  from  the  seaside, 
through  a  picket  fence  to  designated  spots 
near  the  next  fence,  I  being  allowed  nearer 
to  the  gate  than  our  Japanese  guide; 
and  we  worshiped,  that  is  bowed.  I  got 
my  bow  over  disgracefully  quick,  but  I 
think  our  Japanese  conductor  stood  at  least 
fifteen  minutes. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    117 


KYOTO,  April  15. 

Here  we  are  in  the  Florence  of  Japan, 
and  even  more  to  see  if  possible  than  in 
Italy.  We  have  had  a  rainy  day  to-day, 
which  is  perhaps  a  good  beginning  for.  a 
week  of  constant  sightseeing.  This  morn- 
ing we  spent  in  Yamanaka's — the  most 
beautiful  shop  I  ever  saw,  composed  of  the 
finest  Japanese  rooms  of  the  finest  propor- 
tions and  filled  with  the  most  beautiful  art 
specimens  of  all  kinds.  But  the  kinds  are 
properly  assorted  in  true  Japanese  fashion. 
I  bought  a  red  brocade.  It  is  a  panel,  old 
red  with  figures  of  gold  and  some  dark  blue, 
peonies  and  birds.  It  is  what  the  Buddhist 
priests  wear  over  the  left  arm  in  procession. 
We  have  the  certificate  that  it  is  over  a  hun- 
dred years  old.  The  panel  is  about  five  feet 
long  and  one  wide,  the  strips  which  compose 
it  are  four  in  number,  sewed  in  seams,  which 


118    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

turn  the  corners  in  mortise  fashion,  and  yet 
they  all  match  perfectly.  Most  of  these 
strips  are  woven  in  these  ribbons  and  sewed 
together.  I  got  a  second  one  which  is  pur- 
ple with  splendid  big  birds  and  peonies 
again.  I  like  the  peony  in  brocade  much 
better  than  the  chrysanthemum  or  the 
smaller  flowers.  Some  fine  ones  with  pome- 
granates are  tempting,  but  I  did  not  buy  the 
most  beautiful  on  account  of  the  prospects 
of  spending  money  better  in  China.  I  also 
bought  a  pretty  tea  set  which  I  have  here 
in  my  room — it  cost  30  sen,  which  means 
fifteen  cents  for  teapot  and  five  cups,  gray 
pottery  with  blue  decorations.  There  are 
many  cheaper  ones  that  are  pretty  too.  To- 
morrow we  go  to  the  original  temple  where 
the  tea  ceremony  originated  and  are  to  par- 
ticipate in  the  tea  ceremony,  which  the  high 
priest  will  perform  for  us.  You  better  get 
a  guide  book  and  read  about  the  temples  of 
Kyoto,  as  they  are  too  numerous  .to  tell 
about  in  letters.  We  have  the  municipal  car 


for  all  these  occasions.  Good  thing  we  do, 
for  Kyoto  has  shrunk  like  a  nut  in  its  shell 
since  the  days  of  its  ancient  capital  size  and 
the  distances  between  temples  are  enormous. 
Next  day  we  go  to  the  Imperial  Palaces, 
and  so  go  on  and  on  getting  fatter  and 
fatter. 

The  weather  and  the  spring  time  are 
superb.  Cherry  blossoms  were  gone  when 
we  got  here,  but  the  young  leaves  of  the 
maples  are  lovely  green  or  red  and  the  whole 
earth  is  paradise  now.  The  hills  are  nearer 
than  in  Florence,  the  mountains  higher,  so 
that  Kyoto  has  every  natural  beauty.  We 
shall  only  have  a  week  here  and  then  go  to 
Osaka,  where  the  puppet  theater  is  and 
where  there  is  a  school  of  drama,  of  which 
Ganjiro  is  the  leader.  It  is  the  doll  theater 
we  want  to  see,  because  that  is  the  origin  of 
all  acting  in  Japan.  Many  of  the  conven- 
tions of  the  theater  are  based  on  the  move- 
ments of  the  puppets. 

Kyoto  in  many  respects  is  the  most  lovely 


120    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

thing  the  world  has  to  show,  such  a  combi- 
nation of  nature  and  art  as  one  dreams  of. 
These  wonderful  temples  of  enormous  size, 
of  natural  wood  filled  with  paintings  and 
sculpture  of  an  ancient  and  unknown  kind, 
fascinate  one  to  the  point  of  feeling  there 
must  he  many  more  worlds  when  such  mul- 
tiplicity of  ideas  and  feelings  can  exist  on 
a  single  planet,  and  we  live  unconscious  of 
the  whole  of  it  or  even  of  any  part  of  its 
extent.  The  gardens  we  have  seen  to-day 
are  the  old  Japan  unchanged  since  they 
were  made  a  thousand  years  ago,  when  they 
took  the  ancient  ideas  of  China  and  India 
for  models.  The  temples  of  Tokyo  seem 
like  shabby  relics  of  a  worn-out  era,  but 
here  the  perfection  of  their  art  remains  and 
is  kept  intact.  The  landscape  of  the  first 
Buddhist  monastery,  where  the  tea  cere- 
mony originated,  has  the  same  rivers  and 
islands  and  little  piles  of  sand  which  were 
placed  in  the  beginning,  all  in  miniature, 
and  planted  with  miniature  trees,  all  imita- 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    121 

tions  of  real  scenes  in  China  when  China  was 
the  land  of  culture.  Now  they  say  even  the 
originals  are  destroyed  in  China,  which  is 
so  out  of  repair  that  it  depresses  every  one 
who  sees  it.  Fifty  years  ago  they  advertised 
for  sale  here  in  Nara,  a  lovely  pagoda  five 
stories  high  for  fifty  yen.  It  is  obviously 
necessary  for  some  American  millionaire  to 
buy  up  the  massive  gates  and  pagodas  and 
temples  of  China  in  order  to  redeem  them 
from  complete  ruin.  The  Japanese  are  the 
one  people  who  have  waked  up  in  time  to 
the  value  of  these  historic  things,  and  several 
of  the  temples  have  been  rebuilt  before  the 
old  material  was  so  rotted  as  to  make  them 
hopeless.  Wood  is  a  magnificent  material 
when  it  is  used  in  such  massive  structures 
as  it  is  here.  The  biggest  bell  in  the  world, 
twelve  feet  high,  is  hung  on  a  great  tree 
trunk  in  a  belfry  with  a  curled-up  roof  of 
flower-like  proportions,  first  having  been 
hauled  to  the  top  of  the  high  hill.  We  shall 
hear  it  boom  next  Saturday.  We  heard  the 


122    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

one  in  Nara,  the  deepest  thing  I  ever 
thought  to  hear,  nine  feet  high.  They  are 
beautiful  bronze  and  they  are  very  mellow 
and  melodious  and  reach  to  the  center  of 
whatever  the  center  of  your  being  may  be 
and  leave  you  to  hope  the  greater  unknown 
of  the  judgment  day  may  be  a  call  like  -hat 
sound. 

We  had  lunch  with  Miss  D .  She  tells 

stories  about  the  efforts  of  the  Japanese 
girls  to  get  an  education  that  make  you 
want  to  sell  your  earrings,  even  if  you  have 
none,  in  order  to  give  the  money  to  these 
idealists.  They  are  as  much  pioneers  as  our 
forebears  who  chopped  down  the  trees,  but 
they  can't  get  at  a  tree  to  chop.  She  says 
she  wants  me  to  go  back  to  America  and  to 
go  to  every  Congregational  church  there 
and  tell  them  they  must  send  money  here  to 
give  education  to  the  people. 

One  day  we  have  the  mayor's  car  to  go 
about  in  and  the  next  day  the  University 
hires  a  car  for  us  and  we  indulge  ourselves 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    123 

in  all  kinds  of  doings  we  do  not  deserve  and 
sometimes  wonder  if  we  shall  have  to  com- 
mit suicide  after  it  ends  in  order  to  condone 
the  point  of  honor.  Certainly  these  people 
have  a  nobility  of  character  which  entitles 
them  to  race  equality. 

I  want  to  find  a  nice  quiet  place  to  stay 
and  come  back  and  see  the  sights  at  greater 
length.  The  paintings  on  the  walls  are 
mostly  ruined,  but  the  kakemonas  and  the 
screens  and  the  makemonas,  those  are  won- 
derful and  I  am  glad  to  say  that  we  have 
got  over  seeing  them  as  grotesque,  and  we 
feel  their  beauty.  When  once  you  see  that 
the  trees  in  the  ground  are  real  and  that 
they  look  just  as  the  trees  in  the  pictures 
have  always  looked,  then  you  begin  to  ap- 
preciate both  nature  and  human  nature  as 
depicted. 


124    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

KYOTO,  April  15. 

To-day  is  rainy  and  we  haven't  done 
much.  We  got  here  yesterday  noon.  The 
hotel  is  on  the  side  of  a  hill  with  wonderful 
views,  and  is  pretty  good,  though  the  one 
at  Nara  which  is  run  by  the  Imperial  Rail- 
way System  is  the  only  first-class  one  we 
have  seen  so  far.  In  the  afternoon  the  Uni- 
versity sent  a  car  and  we  took  an  auto  ride 
into  the  suburbs  to  a  famous  cherry  place — 
it  was  too  late  for  blossoms,  but  the  river 
and  hills  and  woods  were  beautiful,  and  we 
saw  the  usual  large  crowd  enjoying  life.  It 
is  really  wonderful  the  way  the  people  go 
out,  all  classes,  and  the  amount  of  pleasure 
they  get  out  of  doors  and  in  the  tea  houses. 
I  have  never  been  anywhere  where  every 
day  seemed  so  much  of  a  holiday  as  in  Japan 
— there  is  still  sake  in  evidence  but  not  so 
much. 

This  month  a  special  geisha  dance  is 
given  here  at  a  theater  connected  with  a 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    12a» 

training  school ;  the  dance  lasts  an  hour  and 
is  repeated  four  or  five  consecutive  hours. 
We  went  last  night;  the  dancing  is  much 
more  mechanical  posturing  than  the  theater 
dancing,  or  than  the  little  geisha  dance  we 
saw  at  Nara,  but  the  color  combinations  and 
the  way  they  handled  the  scenery  were  won- 
derful. There  were  eight  very  different 
scenes  and  it  didn't  take  more  than  a  minute 
to  make  any  change.  Once  a  curtain  was 
simply  drawn  down  through  a  trap  door, 
another  time  what  had  looked  like  a  canvas 
mat  in  front  of  the  curtain  was  pulled  up 
and  it  turned  out  to  be  painted  on  one  side. 
But  they  had  a  different  method  every  time. 
The  mayor  has  invited  me  to  speak  to  the 
teachers  Saturday  afternoon,  and  after- 
wards we  are  invited  by  the  municipality  to 
a  Japanese  dinner.  They  are  also  putting 
the  city  auto — the  only  one  apparently — at 
our  disposal,  when  they  aren't  using  it,  and 
have  arranged  to  take  us  to  a  porcelain  and 
a  weaving  factory  next  Monday.  This  town 


126    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

is  the  headquarters  of  Japan  for  artistic 
production,  ancient  and  modern.  The  Uni- 
versity authorities  also  telephoned  to  Tokyo 
and  got  permission  for  us  to  visit  the  palaces 
here,  but  they  are  said  not  to  be  equal  to 
the  Nagoya  ones  which  we  missed.  While 
at  Nara  we  spent  most  of  our  time  at  the 
Horiuji  temples,  some  miles  out.  I  won't 
do  the  encyclopedia  act  except  to  say  that 
they  are  the  headquarters  of  the  introduc- 
tion of  Buddhism  into  Japan  thirteen  hun- 
dred years  ago,  which  meant  civilization, 
especially  art,  and  have  the  wall  frescoes, 
unfortunately  faint,  of  that  period,  and  lots 
of  sculpture ;  this  means  wood  carving,  as  of 
course  there  is  no  marble  here.  Well,  it 
happened  that  it  was  the  birthday  of  Prince 
Shotoku,  who  was  the  gentleman  respon- 
sible for  the  aforesaid  introduction,  and  of 
whom  there  are  many  statues,  age  of  two, 
twelve  and  sixteen  being  favorites;  his  piety 
was  precocious.  Consequently,  everything 
was  wide  open.  Every  kind  of  peep  show 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    127 

and  stall,  and  more  than  the  usual  hundreds 
of  pilgrims  who  combine  pleasure  with  piety 
in  a  way  that  beats  even  the  Italian  peasants ; 
when  they  have  money  here  they  spend  it; 
tightwadism  is  not  a  Japanese  vice.  Well, 
we  were  taken  into  the  garden  of  the  chief 
priest  to  eat  our  luncheon;  of  course,  he 
was  very  busy,  but  greeted  us  in  gorgeous 
robes  and  then  sent  out  tea  and  rice  cakes. 
The  contrast  between  this  lovely  little 
garden  and  the  drums  and  barkers  just  be- 
yond the  walls  and  the  wonderful  old  artistic 
shrines  beyond  the  barkers  and  ham  and 
egg  row  was  as  interesting  as  anything  in 
Japan. 

You  may  remember  Miss  E is  rather 

tall  for  an  American  woman,  even.  Mamma 
is  something  of  an  object  to  the  country  peo- 
ple, but  Miss  E is  a  spectacle.  Curiosity 

is  the  only  emotion  the  Japanese  are  not 
taught  to  conceal  apparently.  They  gather 
around  in  scores,  literally.  I  don't  know 
how  many  times  I  have  seen  parents  make 


128    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

sure  the  children  didn't  miss  the  show. 
Several  times  I  have  seen  people  walk 
slowly  and  solemnly  all  the  way  around  us 
to  make  sure  they  missed  nothing.  No 
rudeness  ever,  just  plain  curiosity.  As  we 
were  going  to  the  museum  after  breakfast, 
a  few  of  those  children,  girls,  appeared  and 
bowed.  First  I  knew  one  of  them  had  hold 
of  each  of  my  hands,  and  went  with  us  as  far 
as  the  museum — girls  of  nine  or  ten.  It  was 
touching  to  see  their  friendliness,  especially 
one  evidently  rather  poor,  who  would  look 
up  at  me  and  laugh,  and  then  squeeze  my 
hand  and  press  it  against  herself,  and  then 
laugh  with  delight  again.  I  haven't  been 
able  to  discover  when  it  ceases  to  be  proper 
for  children  to  be  natural.  Sunday  morning 
some  soldiers  were  going  off  to  Manchuria 
— or  Korea — and  before  eight  we  heard  the 
patter  of  the  clogs  down  the  street  and  some 
hundred  of  boys  and  girls  were  marching 
down  to  the  station  with  their  teachers;  the 
same  thing  next  morning,  for  the  soldiers. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    129 


KYOTO,  April  19. 

We  have  just  come  from  another  Geisha 
party,  given  by  the  mayor  and  about  fifteen 
of  the  other  officers  of  the  city.  Papa  is 
quite  stuck  up  because  they  say  it  is  the 
first  time  the  city  of  Kyoto  ever  entertained 
a  scholar  in  that  fashion.  But  if  he  is  stuck 
up  what  should  I  be  when  a  woman  appears 
for  the  first  time  in  history  at  a  men's  ca- 
rouse in  Japan?  The  Geisha  girls  are  all 
the  way  from  eleven  years  old  to  something 
like  fifty.  One  of  the  older  ones  is  the  best 
dancer  in  the  city,  and  she  gave  us  one  of 
the  wonderful  pantomime  dances  that  so 
fascinate  one  here.  She  has  been  in  jail  for 
her  political  activities,  said  activities  con- 
sisting in  the  active  distribution  of  funds  in 
order  to  elect  someone  she  favored.  It  is 
against  the  law  for  a  woman  to  take  any 
part  in  politics  here.  Like  all  the  older 
women  of  that  class  that  I  have  seen  she  has 


130    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

a  sad  look  when  her  face  is  at  rest.  But 
they  all  talk  and  entertain  so  busily  that  the 
sadness  is  not  seen  by  the  men.  They  are  a 
very  cultivated  lot  of  women  so  far  as  we 
have  seen  them;  of  course  we  see  only  the 
best.  They  talk  with  the  composure  of  a 
duchess  and  the  good  nature  of  a  child.  It 
is  a  rare  combination.  They  are  very  curi- 
ous about  us  and  ask  all  sorts  of  questions. 
One  girl  of  seventeen  said  she  loved  babies 
and  how  many  did  I  have?  When  I  told 
her  five  she  was  delighted.  She  had  a  rose- 
bud mouth  just  like  the  old  prints  and 
danced  with  the  old  print  postures.  The 
girls  pass  the  drinks  and  the  rice  which  al- 
ways comes  at  the  end  of  such  feasts.  The 
little  eleven-year-old  gave  a  dance  called 
"Climbing  Fuji."  Wonderful  flat-footed 
movements  that  make  you  feel  exactly  as  if 
you  were  climbing  with  her.  In  the  middle 
part  she  puts  on  a  mask  which  is  puffy  in 
the  cheeks,  and  then  she  wipes  the  perspira- 
tion and  washes  her  little  face  and  fans  her- 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    131 

self  and  goes  on  again,  flatfooted.  All  the 
motions  are  most  elegant  and  graceful  and 
subtle  and  serpentine,  never  an  abrupt  or 
sudden  gesture,  and  never  quite  literal  in 
any  sense.  After  the  dance  was  finished 
she  came  and  sat  by  me  and  her  skin  was 
hot  as  if  she  had  a  fever.  All  the  men  were 
older  and  I  must  say  they  treated  her  very 
nicely. 

This  is  the  way  those  feasts  go.  We 
enter  the  restaurant  in  stocking  feet,  and 
are  usually  shown  to  a  small  room  where 
we  kneel  on  the  cushions  and  take  tea  while 
waiting  for  all  the  guests  to  assemble. 
About  six  this  time,  we  were  shown  to  the 
large  room,  which  is  always  surrounded  by 
gold  screens  and  shoji,  which  slide  back  be- 
fore the  windows.  Cushions  are  placed 
about  three  feet  apart  on  three  sides  of  the 
long  and  beautifully  shaped  room.  In  the 
middle  of  one  side  they  are  piled  up  so  the 
foreign  guests  of  honor  may  sit  instead  of 
kneeling  Japanese  fashion.  We  place  our- 


132    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

selves  after  having  all  the  guests  one  after 
another  brought  up.  We  shake  hands  be- 
cause their  bows  are  rather  impossible  and 
they  have  adapted  themselves  to  our  way. 
Then  we  all  squat  again.  Then  the  pretty 
waitresses  come  slithering  across  the  floor, 
each  with  a  tiny  table  in  her  hands.  The 
first  is  for  Papa,  the  second  for  me,  then 
the  mayor,  and  so  on.  The  mayor  is  down 
at  the  end  of  the  line.  After  each  one  has 
his  table  before  him  the  mayor  comes  to  the 
center  of  the  hollow  square  and  makes  a 
little  speech  of  welcome.  He  always  tells 
you  how  sorry  he  is  he  has  such  a  poor  en- 
tertainment and  that  he  could  not  do  better 
for  these  distinguished  guests  who  do  him 
so  much  honor  by  coming,  and  how  this  is 
the  first  time  the  city  has  ever  honored  a 
foreign  scholar  by  this  kind  of  entertain- 
ment. Then  Papa  does  his  best  to  make  a 
reply,  and  after  he  sits  down  we  lift  the 
cover  of  a  lovely  lacquer  soup  bowl  and  lift 
the  chop  sticks.  You  take  a  drink  of  soup, 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    133 

lift  a  thin  slippery  slice  of  raw  fish  from  its 
little  dish,  dip  it  in  the  sauce  and  put  it  in 
your  mouth.  To-night  this  first  soup  is  a 
rich  and  rare  green  turtle,  delicious.  So 
you  drink  it  all  and  take  a  little  fish,  but 
our  guide  warns  us  not  to  take  too  much 
raw  fish  as  we  are  not  accustomed  it.  By 
this  time  another  tray  of  pretty  lacquer  is 
put  beside  you  on  the  floor  and  on  it  is  a 
tiny  tray  or  platter  of  lacquer  on  which  are 
placed  two  little  fish  browned  to  perfection, 
and  trimmed  with  two  little  cakes  of  egg 
and  powdered  fish,  very  nicely  rolled  in 
cherry  leaves.  Every  dish  is  a  work  of  art 
in  its  arrangement.  These  two  fish  are  the 
favorite  of  the  last  emperor,  and  you  do  not 
blame  him.  They  are  cooked  in  mirin,  a 
kind  of  sweet  liquor  made  from  sake,  and 
you  eat  all  you  can  pick  off  the  bones  with 
your  hashi.  As  soon  as  this  tray  is  in  place 
you  see  a  lovely  little  girl  with  her  long, 
bright-colored  kimona  on  the  floor  around 
her,  and  she  has  in  her  hand  a  blue  and 


white  china  bottle  placed  in  a  tiny  lacquer 
coaster,  and  you  know  the  feast  is  really 
under  way.  She  is  followed  by  the  older 
girls,  and  little  by  little  one  at  a  time  and 
quite  gradually  the  dancing  girls  come  in 
and  bow  to  the  floor  while  they  pour  out  the 
sake.  They  laugh  at  the  ways  of  the  for- 
eigners who  always  forget  it  is  the  part  of 
the  guest  to  hold  out  his  tiny  cup  for  the 
poison.  Everybody  drinks  to  the  health  of 
everybody  else  and  there  stops  my  sake,  but 
the  Japanese  drink  on  and  on,  one  cup  at 
a  sip  and  the  hand  reaching  out  for  more. 
Talk  gets  livelier,  the  girls  take  more  part 
in  it.  They  are  said  by  some  to  be  the  only 
interesting  women  in  Japan.  At  any  rate, 
no  wives  are  ever  there  but  me,  and  the  girls 
are  beautifully  cultured,  moving  at  the 
slightest  suggestion  of  voice  or  gesture  and 
always  seeing  quickly  and  very  pleasantly 
what  each  one  wants.  As  soon  as  they  see 
we  do  not  drink  sake  they  bring  many 
bottles  of  mineral  water  for  us.  Then  they 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    135 

do  their  beautiful  dances.  Two,  about  seven- 
teen years  old,  did  one  called  "Twilight 
on  the  east  hill  of  Kyoto."  In  Nagoya, 
in  Tokyo,  or  wherever  you  are,  the  theme 
is  always  some  natural  event  connected  with 
the  nature  near  by.  Always  simple  and 
classic.  Then  the  famous  old  dancer  did  a 
subtle  thing  called  "The  nurse  putting  the 
child  to  sleep."  That  is  another  favorite 
theme.  This  was  lovely,  but  sometimes  too 
subtle  for  us  to  grasp  all  the  movements. 
These  girls  all  dress  in  dark  colors  like  the 
ladies,  only  with  the  difference  prescribed 
by  the  profession,  such  as  the  low  neck  in 
the  back  and  the  full  length  of  the  kimona 
on  the  floor  like  a  wave  around  her.  With 
the  young  ones  the  obi  is  different,  being 
tied  to  drop  down  on  the  floor  in  a  long  bow. 
The  young  ones  also  have  the  bright  hair 
ornaments  and  the  very  long  sleeves.  But 
so  do  other  young  girls  wear  the  long  sleeves 
for  company  dress. 

There  are  other  courses  of  fish;  one  of 


136    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

four  strawberries,  two  slices  of  orange,  some 
mint  jelly  cut  in  cubes,  and  sweetened 
bamboo  slices  in  the  middle  of  the  list.  Then 
more  fish  courses,  many  of  them  bright- 
colored  shell  fish  which  are  always  rather 
tough.  Then  a  very  nice  mixture  of  sour 
cucumber  salad  and  little  pieces  of  lobster 
or  crab,  very  nice  and  any  sour  thing  is 
good  with  these  many  courses  of  fish.  At 
the  end  bowls  of  rice,  which  is  brought  in 
in  a  big  lacquer  dish  with  a  cover  looking 
some  like  a  small  barrel.  This  is  put  into 
bowls  by  one  of  the  older  dancers  and 
handed  about  by  the  younger  ones  who  get 
up  and  down  from  their  kneeling  posture 
by  just  lifting  themselves  as  if  they  had  no 
weight,  on  their  toes.  Many  of  the  Japanese 
take  the  regulation  three  bowls  full  of  rice, 
and  eat  it  very  fast.  I  must  say  their  rice 
is  delicious,  but  I  cannot  get  away  with 
more  than  one  bowl,  partly  because  I  can- 
not gobble.  Then,  for  the  last,  your  bowl 
is  filled  with  tea. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    137 

All  this  time  the  gentlemen  from  the 
other  parts  of  the  room  are  kneeling  one 
at  a  time  before  you  asking  you  if  you  like 
the  cherry  dance  and  what  your  first  im- 
pressions of  Japan  were,  and  all  such  talk, 
and  you  have  become  intimate  friends  with 
the  dancers  as  well,  maybe  with  no  common 
language  except  "thank  you"  and  "very 
nice"  and  "good-bye,"  and  constant  smiles 
and  interpretations  now  and  then  from 
others  who  know  a  very  little  English.  One 
thing  no  one  expects  is  for  a  foreigner  to 
know  a  word  of  Japanese.  Therefore,  when 
you  pop  out  an  awkward  word  or  two,  you 
are  applauded  by  laughter  and  compliments 
on  your  good  pronunciation.  To-night  we 
had  the  very  tiniest  of  green  peppers  cooked 
as  a  vegetable  with  one  of  the  dishes.  That 
was  good  as  it  had  flavor;  three  of  them 
about  as  big  as  a  hairpin  were  served  in  the 
dish.  You  always  get  tiny  portions  and  are 
usually  warned  not  to  eat  too  much  at  the 
first  part  of  the  meal.  In  the  tea-dinner  the 


138    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

rice  comes  along  at  the  beginning  so  it  can 
be  eaten  with  the  fish,  and  that  is  an  agree- 
able variety  though  you  are  told  not  to  eat 
too  much  of  it  as  there  are  other  courses  to 
follow.  I  forgot  to  say  there  is  always  a 
course  in  the  middle  which  is  a  hot  custard 
made  with  broth  instead  of  milk  and  sea- 
soned with  vegetables.  That  is  good,  too. 
In  fact,  I  have  become  quite  fond  of  this 
fish  food. 

When  we  got  in  the  motor  car  at  the  gate 
of  the  restaurant,  all  the  gay  little  dancers 
were  standing  there  in  the  rain  waving  their 
hands  in  American  fashion  till  we  went  out 
of  sight.  Then  I  suppose  the  tired  little 
things  went  back  and  danced  for  more  men. 
We  were  home  at  8:30.  All  the  dinners 
seem  to  be  early  here  in  Japan,  except  what 
are  called  the  foreign  ones  and  they  follow 
our  hours  as  well  as  our  style. 

I  must  tell  you  the  best  tea  in  Japan 
grows  here  at  a  place  nearby  called  Uji. 
We  had  that  tea  after  a  lecture  in  the  city 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN  139 

fiall.  It  is  strong  to  the  danger  point,  and 
has  a  flavor  unlike  anything  else.  An  acid 
like  lemon  and  no  bitter  at  all;  leaves  a 
smooth  pleasant  taste  something  like  dry 
sherry,  and  is  generally  delicious.  It  costs 
at  least  ten  yen  a  pound  here,  but  I  shall 
get  some  to  take  home.  Very  good  ordi- 
nary tea  here  costs  fifteen  sen  a  pound,  seven 
and  a  half  cents. 


140    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


KYOTO,  April  22. 

To-day  we  were  taken  visiting  schools — 
first  a  Boys*  High  school,  then  an  elemen- 
tary school  which  had  an  American  flag 
along  with  the  Japanese  over  the  door  in 
our  honor,  and  which  was  awfully  nice. 
The  children  did  lots  of  cunning  stunts  for 
us,  one  little  kid  beating  the  Japanese 
drum  for  their  rhythmic  marching,  which 
they  are  good  at.  Then  a  textile  school  for 
textile  design,  weaving  and  dyeing,  which 
for  some  unexplained  reason  was  bad  and 
poorly  attended.  The  machines  were  old, 
German  and  out  of  date.  In  fact,  it  all 
looked  as  if  it  had  been  worked  off  on  them 
second  hand  by  some  Germans  who  didn't 
want  them  ever  to  amount  to  anything.  All 
of  the  best  work  here  is  still  done  by  hand, 
although  they  have  good  electric  power  de- 
veloped from  the  water  they  have.  Then  we 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    141 

went  to  a  Girls'  High  School,  combined 
with  a  college  for  girls,  preparing  teachers 
for  the  regular  high  schools.  The  elite  of 
Kyoto  go  there,  and  it,  like  the  other  schools, 
was  very  nice  and  good.  They  specialize  in 
domestic  science  and  we  ate  a  fine  Japanese 
lunch  they  had  prepared.  All  this,  like  most 
our  other  trips,  in  the  mayor's  car. 

This  is  really  a  country  where  the  scholar 
is  looked  up  to  and  not  down  upon.  In 
virtue  of  having  lectured  at  the  Imperial 
University  I  am  "Your  Excellency"  offi- 
cially. Osaka  city  does  not  wish  to  be  out- 
done by  Kyoto,  so  I  am  to  lecture  to  the 
teachers  there,  and  the  city  is  to  provide 
for  us  at  the  hotel,  and  the  mayor  to  give 
us  a  banquet  there.  Of  course,  Mamma  is 
the  only  woman  present,  as  it  would  not 
occur  to  them  to  invite  their  own  wives. 
Foreign  women  are  expected,  however,  to 
do  strange  things,  and  they  are  very  polite 
to  them.  The  geisha  women  seem  to  be 
about  the  only  ones  who  have  an  all-around 


142    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

education — not  of  the  book  type,  but  in  the 
sense  of  knowing  about  things  and  being 
able  and  willing  to  talk — and  I  think  the 
men  go  to  these  banquets  and  talk  to  them 
because  they  are  tired  of  their  too  obeyful 
wives  and  their  overdocility.  One  woman 
at  the  banquet  we  went  to  was  known  as 
the  Singing  Butterfly,  and  has  the  name 
Constitution  as  a  nickname,  because  of  her 
supposed  interest  in  politics,  especially  on 
the  liberal  side.  When  we  heard  that  she 
had  been  in  prison  because  of  her  interest  in 
politics,  we  sat  up  and  took  notice,  but  it 
turned  out  that  it  was  for  bribing  voters 
to  vote  for  a  man  she  was  interested  in.  But 
she  is  a  local  celebrity  all  right,  and  her  stay 
in  prison  had  evidently  added  to  her  interest 
and  prestige. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    143 


April  28,  on  the  Kumano  Maru. 
En  Route  to  China. 

The  lecture  yesterday  was  a  success,  go- 
ing off  rather  better  than  the  others.  It  was 
in  a  school  hall  and  they  are  always  beauti- 
ful rooms.  I  was  entertained  during  its 
two  hours  of  duration  by  watching  a  splen- 
did pink  azalea  and  a  pine  on  either  side 
of  the  desk.  They  are  each  about  five  feet 
high  and  of  the  most  lovely  shape,  and  there 
were  about  a  thousand  blossoms  on  this 
azalea.  We  know  but  very  little  about 
dwarfed  trees  and  shrubs  in  our  country  as 
the  specimens  we  see  are  very  small  ones 
and  inferior  in  shape  and  interest  to  those 
we  see  here.  They  are  everywhere,  each 
little  shop  has  in  the  midst  of  its  mess  of 
second  hand  or  cheap  new  things  a  charm- 
ing little  peach  or  plum,  pine,  azalea,  or 
redberry.  In  a  hot  house  we  saw  a  tree 


144    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

that  had  two  plums  on  it,  and  we  frequently 
see  tiny  orange  trees  covered  with  fruit. 
The  white  peach  is  one  of  the  loveliest 
things  in  the  world,  double  blossoms  like 
roses,  and  is  entirely  artificially  produced. 

The  smoke  has  lifted  and  we  are  seeing 
the  hills  of  the  shore  very  well.  On  the 
other  side  of  the  ship  we  see  the  Island 
of  Awaji,  so  we  are  now  between  the  two 
islands  and  it  is  much  like  the  Thousand 
Islands  in  the  St.  Lawrence  River.  I  sup- 
pose this  is  the  entrance  to  the  Inland  Sea. 
It  is  partly  clear  and  the  land  is  so  close  it 
is  easy  to  see.  There  are  many  Japanese 
ladies  on  board  with  their  husbands  and 
they  seem  to  enjoy  it.  With  their  faces 
white  with  rice  powder  and  their  purple 
color  in  their  haoris  they  are  pretty,  and 
especially  here  where  they  do  not  feel  the 
necessity  of  covering  the  obi  with  haori  so 
they  look  less  humpbacked  than  in  fashion- 
able Tokyo.  Their  footwear  I  love,  only, 
of  course,  it  holds  them  still  more  to  the 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    145 

conventional  position  as  it  leaves  the  legs 
bare  above  the  ankle,  and  they  must  walk 
so  as  not  to  show  that  as  well  as  not  to  dis- 
turb the  lap  of  the  kimona  down  the  front. 
But  the  tabi  feel  like  bare  feet  on  account 
of  the  division  of  the  big  toe  from  the  other 
toes,  and  as  soon  as  you  put  them  on  you 
feel  as  if  the  toes  were  really  made  to  use, 
and  the  foot  clings  as  you  walk.  I  am  tak- 
ing a  set  of  cotton  kimonas  to  China  so  as 
to  have  them  to  wear  in  my  room  with  the 
tabi  on  hot  days.  Without  the  obi  the  dress 
becomes  quite  cool  if  made  of  thin  mate- 
rial. The  thin  silk,  which  is  practically 
transparent,  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
things  in  Japanese  weaving,  as  it  is  still  firm 
enough  to  keep  its  shape  and  wear  for  years. 
The  dress  of  the  geisha  is  very  like  the 
ceremonial  dress  of  the  lady,  especially 
when  black  with  decorations  at  the  bottom. 
The  little  girls  are  very  touching,  many  of 
them  are  not  over  eight  or  nine,  and  they 
wear  the  elaborate  dress  and  coiffure  which 


146    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

is  theirs  for  the  part.  In  cherry  season  it 
is  bright  peacock  blue.  In  Osaka  the  deco- 
rations were  butterflies  in  colors  and  gold. 
The  samisen  players  are  older  and  they 
dress  more  plainly  in  black  or  plain  blue, 
the  drum  players  are  young  and  gay  colored. 
The  teeth  of  the  little  girls  are  so  bad  that 
I  asked  if  they  blackened  them.  The  dances 
are  lovely  poetical  things  with  themes  of  the 
most  delicate  subjects.  There  is  never  any- 
thing coarse  either  in  the  thought  or  the 
execution.  They  say  the  geisha  is  the  most 
unselfish  person  in  the  world.  Perhaps  that 
might  be  said  for  all  the  women.  They  do 
their  hard  work  and  keep  themselves  out 
of  sight  to  a  degree  that  shows  the  pain 
there  must  be  in  it.  When  I  was  asked  what 
I  thought  of  them  I  answered  that  I  thought 
Japanese  women  were  not  appreciated  for 
what  they  did.  They  said,  "No,  that  is  not 
so,  we  do  not  show  it  but  we  appreciate  them 
in  our  hearts." 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN   147 


SHANGHAI,  May  1. 

We  have  slept  one  night  in  China,  but 
we  haven't  any  first  impressions,  because 
China  hasn't  revealed  itself  to  our  eyes  as 
yet.  We  compared  Shanghai  to  Detroit, 
Michigan,  and  except  that  there  is  less  coal 
smoke,  the  description  hits  it  off.  This  is 
said  to  be  literally  an  international  city,  but 
I  haven't  learned  yet  just  what  the  tech- 
nique is;  every  country  seems  to  have  its 
own  post  office  though,  and  its  own  front- 
door yard,  and  when  we  were  given  a  little 
auto  ride  yesterday,  we  found  that  the  car 
couldn't  go  into  Chinatown  because  it  had 
no  license  for  that  district. 

I  shall  be  interested  to  find  out  whether 
in  this  really  old  country  they  talk  about 
"ages  eternal"  as  freely  as  they  do  in  Japan; 
the  authentic  history  of  the  latter  begins 
about  500  A.D.,  their  mythical  history  500 


148    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

B.C.,  but  still  it  is  a  country  which  has  en- 
dured during  myriads  of  ages.  In  spite  of 
the  fact  that  they  kept  the  emperors  shut 
up  for  a  thousand  years,  and  killed  them 
off  and  changed  them  about  with  great  ease 
and  complacency,  the  children  are  all 
taught,  and  they  repeat  in  books  for  for- 
eigners, that  the  rule  of  Japan  has  been 
absolutely  unbroken.  Of  course,  they  get 
to  believing  these  things  themselves,  not 
exactly  intellectually  but  emotionally  and 
practically,  and  it  would  be  worth  any 
teacher's  position  for  him  to  question  any 
of  their  patriotic  legends  in  print.  How- 
ever, they  say  that  in  their  oral  lectures,  the 
professors  of  history  of  the  universities 
criticise  these  legends.  In  the  higher  ele- 
mentary school  we  visited  in  Osaka,  we  saw 
five  classes  in  history  and  ethics,  in  each  of 
which  the  Emperor  was  under  discussion — 
sometimes  the  Emperor  and  what  he  had 
done  for  the  country,  and  sometimes  an 
Emperor  in  particular.  Apparently  this 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    149 

religion  has  been  somewhat  of  a  necessity, 
as  the  country  was  so  divided  and  split  up, 
they  had  practically  nothing  else  to  unite 
on — the  Emperor  became  a  kind  of  symbol 
of  united  and  modern  Japan.  But  this  wor- 
ship is  going  to  be  an  Old  Man  of  the  Sea 
on  their  backs.  They  say  the  elementary 
school  teachers  are  about  the  most  fanatical 
patriots  of  the  country.  More  than  one  has 
been  burned  or  allowed  the  children  to  be 
burned  while  he  rescued  the  portrait  of  the 
Emperor  when  there  was  a  fire.  They  must 
take  it  out  in  patriotism  in  lieu  of  salary; 
they  don't  get  a  living  wage,  now  that  the 
cost  of  living  has  gone  uj>, 


150    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

SHANGHAI,  May  2. 

We  have  been  taken  in  hand  by  a  recep- 
tion committee  of  several  Chinese  gentle- 
men, mostly  returned  American  students. 
The  "returned  student"  is  a  definite  cate- 
gory here,  and  if  and  when  China  gets  on 
its  feet,  the  American  university  will  have 
a  fair  share  of  the  glory  to  its  credit.  They 
took  us  to  see  a  Chinese  cotton  spinning  and 
weaving  factory.  There  is  not  even  the 
pretense  at  labor  laws  here  that  there  is  in 
Japan.  Children  six  years  of  age  are  em- 
ployed, not  many  though,  and  the  wages  of 
the  operatives  in  the  spinning  department, 
mainly  women,  is  thirty  cents  a  day,  at  the 
highest  thirty-two  cents  Mex.  In  the  weav- 
ing department  they  have  piece  work  and 
get  up  to  forty  cents. 

I  will  tell  you  something  of  what  we  had 
to  eat  in  one  small  afternoon.  First,  lunch 
of  all  courses  here  at  the  hotel.  Then  we 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    151 

went  to  the  newspaper  where  we  had  tea 
and  cake  at  about  four.  From  there  to  the 
house  of  the  daughter  of  a  leading  states- 
man of  the  Manchus,  she  being  a  lady  of 
small  feet  and  ten  children,  who  has  offered 
a  prize  for  the  best  essay  on  the  ways  to 
stop  concubinage,  which  they  call  the  whole 
system  of  plural  marriage.  They  say  it  is 
quite  unchanged  among  the  rich.  There  we 
were  given  a  tea  of  a  rare  sort,  unknown  in 
our  experience.  Two  kinds  of  meat  pies 
which  are  made  in  the  form  of  little  cakes 
and  quite  peculiar  in  taste,  delicious;  also 
cake.  Then  after  we  went  to  the  restaurant 
where  we  were  to  have  dinner.  First  we 
got  into  the  wrong  hotel  and  there,  while 
we  were  waiting,  they  gave  us  tea.  We 
were  struck  by  the  fact  that  they  asked  for 
nothing  when  we  left,  and  thanked  us  for 
coming  to  the  wrong  place.  Then  we  went 
to  the  right  hotel  across  the  street  from  the 
first.  They  called  it  the  corner  of  Broad- 
way and  42nd  Street,  and  it  is  that.  There 


152    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

is  a  big  roof  garden  besides  the  hotels,  and 
they  are  both  run  by  the  Department  stores 
which  have  their  places  underneath.  It  may 
be  a  sad  commentary  on  the  human  char- 
acter that  one  can  eat  more  than  one  can 
remember,  but  that  is  what  we  did  last 
night.  First  of  all  we  went  into  the  room 
which  was  all  Chinese  furniture;  very  small 
round  table  in  the  middle  and  the  rows  of 
stools  along  one  side  for  the  singing  girls, 
who  do  not  dance  here.  Those  stools  were 
not  used,  as  all  the  young  Chinese  are 
ashamed  of  that  institution  and  want  to 
get  rid  of  it.  On  a  side  table  were  almonds 
shelled,  nice  little  ones,  different  from  ours 
and  very  sweet.  Beside  them  were  dried 
watermelon  seeds  which  were  hard  to  crack 
and  so  I  did  not  taste  them.  All  the 
Chinese  nibbled  them  with  relish.  Two 
ladies  came,  both  of  them  had  been  in  New 
York  to  study.  All  these  people  speak  and 
understand  English  in  earnest.  On  the 
table  were  little  pieces  of  sliced  ham,  the 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    153 

famous  preserved  eggs  which  taste  like  hard- 
boiled  eggs  and  look  like  dark-colored 
jelly,  and  little  dishes  of  sweets,  shrimps, 
etc.  To  these  we  helped  ourselves  with  the 
chop  sticks,  though  they  insisted  on  giving 
us  little  plates  on  which  they  spooned  out 
some  of  each.  Then  followed  such  a  feast 
as  we  had  never  experienced,  the  boys  tak- 
ing off  one  dish  after  another  and  replacing 
them  with  others  in  the  center  of  the  table, 
to  which  we  helped  ourselves.  There  was 
no  special  attempt  at  display  of  fine  dishes 
such  as  you  might  have  expected  with  such 
cooking  and  such  expense,  and  such  as 
would  have  happened  in  Japan.  We  had 
chicken  and  duck  and  pigeon  and  veal  and 
pigeon  eggs  and  soup  and  fish  and  little 
oysters  that  grow  in  the  ground  (very  de- 
licious and  delicate)  and  nice  little  vege- 
tables and  bamboo  sprouts  mixed  in  with 
the  others,  and  we  had  shrimps  cooked,  and 
shark's  fin  and  bird's  nest  (this  has  no  taste 
at  all  and  is  a  sort  of  very  delicate  soup, 


154    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

but  costs  a  fortune  and  that  is  its  real  reason 
for  being) .  It  is  gelatine  which  almost  all 
dissolves  in  the  cooking.  We  had  many 
more  things  than  these,  and  the  boy  in  a 
dirty  white  coat  and  an  old  cap  on  his  head 
passing  round  the  hot  perfumed  wet  towels 
every  few  courses,  and  for  dessert  we  had 
little  cakes  made  of  bean  paste  filled  up 
with  almond  paste  and  other  sweets,  all  very 
elaborately  made,  and  works  of  art  to  look 
at,  but  with  too  little  taste  to  appeal  much 
to  us;  then  we  had  fruits,  bananas  and 
apples  and  pears,  cut  up  in  pieces,  each  with 
a  toothpick  in  it  so  it  can  be  eaten  easily. 
Then  we  had  a  soup  made  of  fish's  stomach, 
or  air  sac.  Then  we  had  a  pudding  of  the 
most  delicious  sort  imaginable,  made  of  a 
mold  of  rice  filled  in  with  eight  different 
symbolic  things  that  I  don't  know  anything 
about,  but  they  don't  cut  much  part  in  the 
taste.  In  serving  this  dish  we  were  first 
given  a  little  bowl  half  full  of  a  sauce  thick- 
ened and  looking  like  a  milk  sauce.  It  was 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    155 

really  made  of  powdered  almonds.  Into 
this  you  put  the  pudding,  and  it  is  so  good 
that  I  regretted  all  that  had  gone  before, 
and  I  am  going  to  learn  how  to  make  it. 


156    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


SHANGHAI,  May  3. 

Some  one  told  us  when  we  were  on  the 
boat  that  the  Japanese  cared  everything  for 
what  people  thought  of  them,  and  the 
Chinese  cared  nothing.  Making  compari- 
sons is  a  favorite,  if  dangerous,  indoor  sport. 
The  Chinese  are  noisy,  not  to  say  boister- 
ous, easy-going  and  dirty — and  quite  human 
in  general  effect.  They  are  much  bigger 
than  the  Japanese,  and  frequently  very 
handsome  from  any  point  of  view.  The 
most  surprising  thing  is  the  number  of  those 
who  look  not  merely  intelligent  but  intel- 
lectual among  the  laborers,  such  as  some  of 
the  hotel  waiters  and  attendants.  Our 
waiter  is  a  rather  feminine,  ultra  refined 
type,  and  might  be  a  poet.  I  noticed  quite 
a  number  of  the  same  Latin  quarter  Paris 
type  of  artists  among  the  teachers  whom  I 
addressed  to-day.  The  Japanese  impres- 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    157 

sions  are  gradually  sinking  into  perspective 
with  distance,  and  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the 
same  qualities  that  make  them  admirable 
are  also  the  ones  that  irritate  you.  That 
they  should  have  made  what  they  have  out 
of  that  little  and  mountainous  island  is  one 
of  the  wonders  of  the  world,  but  everything 
in  themselves  is  a  little  overmade,  there 
seems  to  be  a  rule  for  everything,  and  ad- 
miring their  artistic  effects  one  also  sees  how 
near  art  and  the  artificial  are  together.  So 
it  is  something  of  a  relaxation  to  get  among 
the  easy-going  once  more.  Their  slouchi- 
ness,  however,  will  in  the  end  get  on  one's 
nerves  quite  as  much  as  the  "eternal"  at- 
tention of  the  Japanese.  One  more  general- 
ization borrowed  from  one  of  our  Chinese 
friends  here,  and  I'm  done.  "The  East 
economizes  space  and  the  West  time" — that 
also  is  much  truer  than  most  epigrams. 


158    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


SHANGHAI,  May  4. 

I  have  seen  a  Chinese  lady,  small  feet  and 
all.  We  took  dinner  with  her.  She  did  not 
come  into  the  room  until  after  dinner  was 
over,  having  been  in  the  kitchen  cooking  it 
while  the  servant  brought  things  in.  She 
has  one  of  those  placid  faces  which  are 
round  and  plump  and  quite  beautiful  in  a 
way,  a  pretty  complexion,  and  of  course  a 
slow,  rocking,  hobbling  way  of  walking. 
Yesterday  after  the  lecture  we  went  there 
again  and  she  showed  us  all  over  her  flat. 
It  is  well  kept,  with  not  many  conveniences 
from  our  point  of  view,  but  I  think  it  is 
regarded  as  quite  modern  here.  It  has  a 
staircase,  and  a  little  roof  where  they  dry 
clothes  or  sit.  The  bath  is  a  tin  tub,  warmed 
by  carrying  water  from  the  little  stove  like 
our  little  laundry  stoves.  It  has  an  outlet 
pipe  to  the  ground,  no  sewers  as  usual  in 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN     159 

the  Orient.  The  kitchen  has  a  little  stove 
of  iron  set  up  on  boxes  and  they  burn  small 
pieces  of  wood.  It  has  three  compartments, 
two  big  shallow  iron  pots  for  roasting  and 
boiling  and  a  deep  one  in  the  middle  for 
keeping  the  hot  water  for  tea.  Only  two 
fires  are  needed  as  the  heat  from  the  two 
end  fires  does  for  the  water  in  the  middle. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  Chinese  are  a 
sociable  people  if  given  a  chance.  Of  course, 
men  like  the  husband  of  our  hostess  are  the 
extreme  of  ability  and  advanced  ideas  here. 
But  it  is  remarkable  that  he  shows  us  things 
as  they  are.  When  we  visited  schools  he 
did  not  arrange  in  advance  because  he  did 
not  want  us  to  sec  a  fixed  up  program. 
When  we  went  out  to  lunch  he  took  us  to 
a  Chinese  place  where  no  foreigners  ever  go. 

Yesterday  we  went  to  a  department  store 
to  buy  some  gloves  and  garters.  Gloves 
were  Keyser's,  imported,  so  were  the 
stockings,  so  were  the  garters  and  sus- 
penders, etc.  The  gloves  were  from  $1  to 


160    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

$1.60  and  the  suspenders  were  a  dollar.  I 
bought  some  silk,  sixteen  inches  wide,  for 
fifty  cents  a  yard.  The  store  was  messy 
and  the  floors  dirty,  but  it  is  a  popular  place 
for  the  Chinese.  We  paid  three  dollars  for 
a  book  marked  Ish.  6p.  in  England,  and 
everything  here  is  like  that.  Gloves  and 
stockings  are  made  in  Japan,  and  good 
and  cheap  there;  fine  silken  stockings  $1.60 
a  pair.  But  still  the  Chinese  do  not  buy 
of  them,  but  from  America.  We  have 
visited  a  cotton  mill.  The  Chinese  cotton 
and  silk  are  now  inferior,  owing  to  lack  of 
scientific  production  and  of  proper  care  of 
seed.  In  weaving,  they  sometimes  mix  their 
cotton  with  ours. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    161 


The  Peking  tempest  seems  to  have  suB- 
sided  for  the  present,  the  Chancellor  still 
holding  the  fort,  and  the  students  being  re- 
leased. The  subsidized  press  said  this  was 
due  in  part  to  the  request  of  the  Japanese 
that  the  school-boy  pranks  be  looked  upon 
indulgently.  According  to  the  papers,  the 
Japanese  boycott  is  spreading,  but  the  ones 
we  see  doubt  if  the  people  will  hold  out  long 
enough — meanwhile  Japanese  money  is  re- 
fused here. 

The  East  is  an  example  of  what  mascu- 
line civilization  can  be  and  do.  The  trouble 
I  should  say  is  that  the  discussions  have 
been  confined  to  the  subjection  of  the 
women  as  if  that  were  a  thing  affecting  the 
women  only.  It  is  my  conviction  that  not 
merely  the  domestic  and  educational  back- 


162    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

wardness  of  China,  but  the  increasing  physi- 
cal degeneration  and  the  universal  political 
corruption  and  lack  of  public  spirit,  which 
make  China  such  an  easy  mark,  is  the  result 
of  the  condition  of  women.  There  is  the 
same  corruption  in  Japan  only  it  is  organ- 
ized; there  seems  to  be  an  alliance  between 
two  groups  of  big  capitalists  and  the  two 
leading  political  "parties."  There  the  very 
great  public  spirit  is  nationalistic  rather 
than  social,  that  is,  it  is  patriotism  rather 
than  public  spirit  as  we  understand  it.  So 
while  Japan  is  strong  where  China  is  weak, 
there  are  corresponding  defects  there  be- 
cause of  the  submission  of  women — and  the 
time  will  come  when  the  hidden  weakness 
will  break  Japan  down.  Here  are  two  items 
from  the  Chinese  side.  A  missionary  spoke 
to  Christian  Chinese  about  spending  the 
time  Sunday,  making  chiefly  the  point  that 
it  was  a  good  time  for  family  reunions  and 
family  readings,  conversation  and  the  like. 
One  of  them  said  that  they  would  be  bored 


,    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    163 

to  death  if  they  had  to  spend  the  whole  day 
with  their  wives.  Then  we  are  told  that  the 
rich  women — who  have  of  course  much  less 
liberty  in  getting  out  than  the  poorer  class 
women — spend  their  time  among  themselves 
gambling.  It  is  universally  believed  that 
the  attempt  to  support  a  number  of  wives 
extravagantly  is  one  of  the  chief  sources  of 
political  corruption.  On  the  other  hand,  at 
one  of  the  political  protest  meetings  in 
Peking  a  committee  of  twelve  was  ap- 
pointed to  go  to  the  officials  and  four  of 
them  were  women.  In  Japan  women  are 
forbidden  to  attend  any  meetings  where 
politics  are  discussed,  and  the  law  is  strictly 
enforced.  There  are  many  more  Chinese 
women  studying  in  America  than  there  are 
Japanese — in  part,  perhaps,  because  of  the 
lack  of  higher  schools  for  girls  here,  but  also 
because  they  don't  have  to  give  up  marriage 
here  when  they  get  an  education — in  fact 
we  are  told  they  are  in  especial  demand  not 
only  among  the  men  who  have  studied 


164    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

abroad,  but  among  the  millionaires.  Cer- 
tainly the  educated  ones  here  are  much  more 
advanced  on  the  woman  question  than  in 
Japan. 

"You  never  can  tell"  is  the  coat  of  arms 
of  China.  The  Chancellor  of  the  University 
was  forced  out  on  the  evening  of  the  eighth 
by  the  cabinet,  practically  under  threat  of 
assassination;  also  soldiers  (bandits)  were 
brought  into  the  city  and  the  University  sur- 
rounded, so  to  save  the  University  rather 
than  himself,  he  left — nobody  knows  where. 
The  release  of  the  students  was  sent  out  by 
telegraph,  but  they  refused  to  allow  this  to 
become  known.  It  seems  this  Chancellor 
was  more  the  intellectual  leader  of  the  lib- 
erals than  I  had  realized,  and  the  govern- 
ment had  become  really  afraid  of  him.  He 
has  only  been  there  two  years,  and  before 
that  the  students  had  never  demonstrated 
politically  and  now  they  are  the  leaders  of 
the  new  movement.  So  of  course  the  gov- 
ernment will  put  in  a  reactionary,  and  the 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    165 

students  will  leave  and  all  the  honest  teach- 
ers resign.  Perhaps  the  students  will  go 
on  strike  all  over  China.  But  you  never 
can  tell. 


166    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


Tuesday  A.M. 

Ex-President  Sun  Yat  Sen  is  a  philoso- 
pher, as  I  found  out  last  night  during  dinner 
with  him.  He  has  written  a  book,  to  be 
published  soon,  saying  that  the  weakness  of 
the  Chinese  is  due  to  their  acceptance  of  the 
statement  of  an  old  philosopher,  "To  know 
is  easy,  to  act  is  difficult."  Consequently 
they  did  not  like  to  act  and  thought  it  was 
possible  to  get  a  complete  theoretical  un- 
derstanding, while  the  strength  of  the  Jap- 
anese was  that  they  acted  even  in  ignorance 
and  went  ahead  and  learned  by  their  mis- 
takes; the  Chinese  were  paralyzed  by  fear 
of  making  a  mistake  in  action.  So  he  has 
written  a  book  to  prove  to  his  people  that 
action  is  really  easier  than  knowledge. 

The  American  sentiment  here  hopes  that 
the  Senate  will  reject  the  treaty  because  it 
virtually  completes  the  turning  over  of 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    167 

China  to  Japan.  I  will  only  mention  two 
things  said  in  the  conversation.  Japan 
already  has  more  troops,  namely  twenty- 
three  divisions,  under  arms  in  China  than 
she  has  in  Japan,  Japanese  officered  Chi- 
nese, and  her  possession  of  Manchurian 
China  is  already  complete.  They  have  lent 
China  two  hundred  millions  to  be  used  in 
developing  this  army  and  extending  it. 
They  offered  China,  according  to  the  con- 
versation at  dinner,  to  lend  her  two  million 
a  month  for  twenty  years  for  military  pur- 
poses. Japan  figured  the  war  "would  last  till 
'21  or  '22,  and  had  proposed  an  offensive 
and  defensive  alliance  to  Germany,  Japan 
to  supply  its  trained  Chinese  army,  and 
Germany  to  turn  over  to  Japan  the  Allies' 
concessions  and  colonies  in  China.  As  an 
evidence  of  good  faith,  Germany  had 
already  offered  to  Japan  its  own  Chinese 
territory,  and  it  was  the  communication  of 
this  fact  to  Great  Britain  which  induced  the 
latter  to  sign  the  secret  pact  agreeing  to 


168    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

turn  over  German  possessions  to  Japan, 
when  the  peace  was  made.  These  men  are 
not  jingoists;  they  think  they  know  what 
they  are  talking  about,  and  they  have  good 
sources  of  knowledge.  Some  of  these  state- 
ments are  known  facts — like  the  size  of  the 
army  and  the  two  hundred  million  loan — 
but  of  course  I  can't  guarantee  them.  But 
I'm  coming  to  the  opinion  that  it  might  be 
well  worth  while  to  reject  the  treaty  on  the 
ground  that  it  involved  the  recognition  of 
secret  treaties  and  secret  diplomacy.  On  the 
other  hand,  a  genuine  League  of  Nations 
*— one  with  some  vigor — is  the  only  salvation 
I  can  see  of  the  whole  Eastern  situation,  and 
it  is  infinitely  more  serious  than  we  realize 
at  home.  If  things  drift  on  five  or  ten  years 
more,  the  world  will  have  a  China  under 
Japanese  military  domination — barring  two 
things — Japan  will  collapse  in  the  meantime 
under  the  strain,  or  Asia  will  be  completely 
Bolshevikized,  which  I  think  is  about  fifty- 
fifty  with  a  Japanized-Militarized  China. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    169 

European  diplomacy  here,  which  of  course 
dominates  America,  is  completely  futile. 
England  does  everything  with  reference  to 
India,  and  they  all  temporize  and  drift  and 
take  what  are  called  optimistic  long-run 
views  and  quarrel  among  themselves,  and 
Japan  alone  knows  what  it  wants  and  comes 
after  it. 

I  still  believe  in  the  genuineness  of  the 
Japanese  liberal  movement  there,  but  they 
lack  moral  courage.  They,  the  intellectual 
liberals,  are  almost  as  ignorant  of  the  true 
facts  as  we  are,  and  enough  aware  of  them 
to  wish  to  keep  themselves  in  ignorance. 
Then  there  is  the  great  patriotism,  which  of 
course  easily  justifies,  by  the  predatory  ex- 
ample of  the  Europeans,  the  idea  that  this  is 
all  in  self-defense. 


170    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


SHANGHAI,  May  13. 

I  closed  up  abruptly  because  there  seemed 
a  possibility  of  mail  going  out  and  now  it 
is  a  day  after  and  more  to  tell,  with  a  pros- 
pect of  little  time  to  tell  it.  China  is  full 
of  unused  resources  and  there  are  too  many 
people.  The  factories  begin  to  work  at  six 
or  earlier  in  the  morning,  with  not  enough 
for  the  poor  to  do,  and  they  have  the  habit 
of  not  wanting  to  work  much.  Two  shifts 
work  in  factories  for  the  twenty-four  hours. 
They  get  about  twenty  to  thirty  cents  a  day 
and  the  little  children  get  from  nothing  up 
to  nine  cents,  or  even  eleven  cents  after  they 
get  older.  Iron  mines  are  idle,  coal  and  oil 
undeveloped,  and  they  cannot  get  railroads. 
They  burn  their  wood  everywhere  and  the 
country  is  withering  away  because  it  is  de- 
forested. They  made  the  porcelain  industry 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    171 

for  the  world  and  they  buy  their  table  dishes 
from  Japan.  They  raise  a  deteriorated  cot- 
ton and  buy  cotton  cloth  from  Japan.  They 
buy  any  quantity  of  small  useful  articles 
from  Japan.  Japanese  are  in  every  town 
across  China  like  a  network  closing  in  on 
fishes. 

All  the  mineral  resources  of  China  are  the 
prey  of  the  Japanese,  and  they  have  secured 
80  per  cent  of  them  by  bribery  of  the  Pe- 
king government.  Talk  to  a  Chinese  and 
he  will  tell  you  that  China  cannot  develop 
because  she  has  no  transportation  facilities. 
Talk  to  him  about  building  railroads  and  he 
tells  you  China  ought  to  have  railroads  but 
she  cannot  build  them  because  she  cannot 
get  the  material.  Talk  to  him  about  fuel 
when  you  see  all  the  weeds  being  gathered 
from  the  roadsides  for  burning  in  the  cook 
stoves,  and  he  tells  you  China  cannot  use 
her  mines  because  of  the  government's  in- 
terference. There  are  large  coal  mines 
within  ten  miles  of  this  city  with  the  coal 


lying  near  the  surface  and  only  the  Japan- 
ese are  using  them,  though  they  are  right  on 
the  hank  of  the  Yangste  River.  The  iron 
mines  referred  to  are  near  the  river,  a  whole 
mountain  of  iron  being  worked  hy  the 
Japanese,  who  bring  the  ocean  ships  up  the 
river,  load  them  directly  from  the  mines,  the 
ore  being  carried  down  the  bill,  and  take 
these  ships  directly  to  Japan,  and  they  pay 
four  dollars  a  ton  to  the  Chinese  company 
which  carries  on  all  the  work*. 

The  last  hope  of  China  for  an  effective 
government  passed  away  with  the  closing 
of  the  Peace  Conference,  which  has  been 
working  hard  here  for  weeks.  It  seems  the 
delegates  from  the  south  could  act  with 
plenary  power.  The  delegates  from  the 
north  had  to  refer  everything  to  the  military 
ministers  from  Peking,  and  so  at  last  they 
gave  up.  Despair  is  deeper  than  ever,  and 
they  all  say  that  nothing  can  be  done.  We 
have  gone  round  recommending  many  ways 
of  getting  at  the  wrong  impressions  that 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    173 

prevail  in  our  country  about  them,  such  as 
propaganda,  an  insistence  upon  the  explan- 
ation of  the  differences  between  the  people 
and  the  government.  But  the  reply  is,  "We 
can  do  nothing,  we  have  no  money."  Cer- 
tainly the  Chinese  pride  has  been  grounded 
now.  An  American  official  here  says  there 
is  no  hope  for  China  except  through  the  pro- 
tection of  the  great  powers,  in  which  Japan 
must  join.  Without  that  she  is  the  prey  of 
Japan.  Japanese  are  buying  best  bits  of 
land  in  this  city  for  business,  and  in  other 
cities.  Japan  borrows  money  from  other 
nations  and  then  loans  it  to  China  on  bleed- 
ing terms.  The  cession  of  Shantung  has,  of 
course,  precipitated  the  whole  mess  and 
some  Chinese  think  that  is  their  last  hope 
to  so  reduce  them  to  the  last  extremity  that 
rage  will  bring  them  to  act.  The  boycott  of 
Japanese  goods  and  money  has  begun,  but 
many  say  it  will  not  be  persistently  carried 
out.  The  need  for  food  and  clothes  in  China 
keeps  everybody  bound  by  the  struggle  for 


174    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

a  livelihood,  and  everything  else  has  to  be 
forgotten  in  the  long  run. 

The  protests  of  the  Faculty  on  behalf  of 
the  students  seem  to  have  been  received  by 
the  government  in  good  part.  Students 
here  are  in  trouble  also  to  some  extent  and 
there  is  a  probability  of  a  strike  of  students 
in  all  the  colleges  and  middle  schools  of  the 
country.  The  story  at  St.  John's  here  is 
very  interesting.  It  is  the  Episcopalian 
mission  school,  and  one  of  the  best.  Stu- 
dents walked  to  Shanghai,  ten  miles,  on  the 
hottest  day  to  parade,  then  ten  miles  back. 
Some  of  them  fell  by  the  way  with  sun- 
stroke. On  their  return  in  the  evening  they 
found  some  of  the  younger  students  going 
in  to  a  concert.  The  day  was  a  holiday, 
called  the  Day  of  Humiliation.  It  is  the 
anniversary  of  the  date  of  the  twenty-one 
demands  of  Japan,  and  is  observed  by  all 
the  schools.  It  is  a  day  of  general  meetings 
and  speeclimaking  for  China.  These  stu- 
dents stood  outside  of  the  door  where  the 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    175 

concert  was  to  be  held  and  their  principal 
came  out  and  told  them  they  must  go  to  the 
concert.  They  replied  that  they  were  pray- 
ing there,  as  it  was  not  a  time  for  celebrat- 
ing by  a  concert  on  the  Day  of  Humiliation. 
Then  they  were  ordered  to  go  in  first  by  this 
principal  and  afterwards  by  the  President 
of  the  whole  college.  Considerable  excite- 
ment was  the  result.  Students  said  they 
were  watching  there  for  the  sake  of  China  as 
the  apostles  prayed  at  the  death  of  Christ 
and  this  anniversary  was  like  the  anniver- 
sary of  the  death  of  Christ.  The  President 
told  them  if  they  did  not  go  in  then  he 
would  shut  them  out  of  the  college.  This 
he  did.  They  stood  there  till  morning  and 
then  one  of  them  who  lived  nearby  took 
them  into  his  house.  Therefore  St.  John's 
College  is  closed  and  the  President  has  not 
given  in. 

I  fancy  the  Chinese  would  be  almost 
ready  to  treat  the  Japanese  as  they  did  the 
treacherous  minister  if  it  were  not  for  the 


176    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

reaction  it  would  have  on  the  world  at  large. 
They  do  hate  them  and  the  Americans  we 
have  met  all  seem  to  feel  with  them.  Cer- 
tainly the  apparent  lie  of  the  Japanese  when 
they  made  then*  splurge  in  promising  before 
the  sitting  of  the  Peace  Conference  to  give 
back  the  German  concessions  to  China  is 
something  America  ought  not  to  forget.  All 
these,  and  the  extreme  poverty  of  China  is 
what  I  had  no  idea  of  before  coming  here. 

A  wonderfully  solemn  and  intent  old 
pedlar  has  made  his  appearance  most  every 
day,  and  much  the  same  ceremonies  are  gone 
through.  For  instance,  there  was  a  bead 
necklace — the  light  hollowed  silver  enamel 
— he  wanted  fourteen  dollars  for ;  he  seemed 
rather  glad  finally  to  sell  it  for  four,  though 
you  can't  say  he  seemed  glad;  on  the  con- 
trary, he  seemed  preternaturally  gloomy 
and  remarked  that  he  and  not  we  would  eat 
bitterness  because  of  this  purchase.  The 
funniest  thing  was  once  when,  after  getting 
sick  of  bargaining,  we  put  the  whole  thing 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    17T 

down  and  started  to  walk  away.  His  move- 
ments and  gestures  would  have  made  an 
actor  celebrated — they  are  indescribable, 
but  they  said  in  effect,  "Rather  than  have 
any  misunderstanding  come  between  me 
and  my  close  personal  friends  I  would  give 
you  free  anything  in  my  possession."  The 
blood  rushed  to  his  face  and  a  smile  of 
heavenly  benignity  came  over  it  as  he 
handed  us  the  things  at  the  price  we  had 
offered  him. 

The  students'  committees  met  yesterday 
and  voted  to  inform  the  government  by  tele- 
graph that  they  would  strike  next  Monday 
if  their  four  famous  demands  were  not 
granted — or  else  five — including  of  course  re- 
fusal to  sign  the  peace  treaty,  punishment  of 
traitors  who  made  the  secret  treaties  with 
Japan  because  they  were  bribed,  etc.  But 
the  committee  seemed  to  me  more  conserva- 
tive than  the  students,  for  the  rumor  this 
A.M.  is  that  they  are  going  to  strike  to-day 
anyway.  They  are  especially  angered  be- 


178    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

cause  the  police  have  forbidden  them  to  hold 
open-air  meetings — that's  now  the  subject 
of  one  of  their  demands — and  because  the 
provincial  legislature,  after  promising  to 
help  on  education,  raised  their  own  salaries 
and  took  the  money  to  do  it  with  out  of  the 
small  educational  fund.  In  another  district 
the  students  rioted  and  rough-housed  the 
legislative  hall  when  this  happened.  Here 
there  was  a  protest  committee,  but  the  stu- 
dents are  mad  and  want  action.  Some  of 
the  teachers,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  quite 
sympathize  with  the  boys,  not  only  in  their 
ends  but  in  their  methods;  some  think  it 
their  moral  duty  to  urge  deliberate  action 
and  try  to  make  the  students  as  organized 
and  systematic  as  possible,  and  some  take 
the  good  old  Chinese  ground  that  there  is 
no  certainty  that  any  good  will  come  of  it. 
To  the  outsider  it  looks  as  if  the  babes  and 
sucklings  who  have  no  experience  and  no 
precedents  would  have  to  save  China — if. 
And  it's  an  awful  if.  It's  not  surprising 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    179 

that  the  Japanese  with  their  energy  and 
positiveness  feel  that  they  are  predestined  to 
govern  China. 

I  didn't  ever  expect  to  be  a  jingo,  but 
either  the  United  States  ought  to  wash  its 
hands  entirely  of  the  Eastern  question,  and 
say  "it's  none  of  our  business,  fix  it  up  your- 
self any  way  you  like,"  or  else  it  ought  to  be 
as  positive  and  aggressive  in  calling  Japan 
to  account  for  every  aggressive  move  she 
makes,  as  Japan  is  in  doing  them.  It  is 
sickening  that  we  allow  Japan  to  keep  us 
on  the  defensive  and  the  explanatory,  and 
talk  about  the  open  door,  when  Japan  has 
locked  most  of  the  doors  in  China  already 
and  got  the  keys  in  her  pocket.  I  under- 
stand and  believe  what  all  Americans  say 
here — the  military  party  that  controls 
Japan's  foreign  policy  in  China  regards 
everything  but  positive  action,  prepared  to 
back  itself  by  force,  as  fear  and  weakness, 
and  is  only  emboldened  to  go  still  further. 
Met  by  force,  she  would  back  down.  I  don't 


180    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

mean  military  force,  but  definite  positive 
statements  about  what  she  couldn't  do  that 
she  knew  meant  business.  At  the  present 
time  the  Japanese  are  trying  to  stir  up  anti- 
foreign  feeling  and  make  the  Chinese  be- 
lieve the  Americans  and  English  are  respon- 
sible for  China  not  getting  Shantung  back, 
and  also  talking  race  discrimination  for  the 
same  purpose.  I  don't  know  what  effect 
their  emissaries  are  having  among  the  igno- 
rant, but  the  merchant  class  has  about  got 
to  the  point  of  asking  foreign  intervention 
to  straighten  things  out — first  to  loosen  the 
clutch  of  Japan,  and  then,  or  at  the  same 
time,  for  it's  the  two  sides  of  the  same  thing, 
overthrow  the  corrupt  military  clique  that 
now  governs  China  and  sells  it  out.  It's 
a  wonderful  job  for  a  League  of  Nations — 
if  only  by  any  chance  there  is  a  league,  which 
looks  most  dubious  at  this  distance. 

The  question  which  is  asked  oftenest  by 
the  students  is  in  effect  this:  "All  of  our 
hopes  of  permanent  peace  and  international- 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    181 

ism  having  been  disappointed  at  Paris, 
which  has  shown  that  might  still  makes 
right,  and  that  the  strong  nations  get  what 
they  want  at  the  expense  of  the  weak,  should 
not  China  adopt  militarism  as  part  of  her 
educational  system  2" 


182    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


NANKING,  May  18. 

There  is  no  doubt  we  are  in  China. 
Hangchow,  we  are  told,  was  one  of  the  most 
prosperous  of  the  strictly  Chinese  cities,  and 
after  seeing  this  town  we  can  believe  it.  It 
has  a  big  wall  around  it,  said  to  be  21  miles 
and  also  33 — my  guess  is  the  latter;  none- 
theless there  are  hundreds  of  acres  of  farm 
within  it.  This  afternoon  we  were  taken  up 
on  the  wall;  it  varies  from  15  to  79  feet  in 
height,  according  to  the  lay  of  the  ground, 
and  from  12  to  30  feet  or  so  wide;  hard 
baked  brick,  about  as  large  as  three  of  ours. 
They  always  had  a  smaller  walled  city  inside 
the  big  one,  variously  called  the  Imperial 
and  Manchu  city.  But  since  the  revolution 
they  are  tearing  down  these  inner  walls, 
partly  I  suppose  to  show  their  contempt  for 
the  Manchus,  and  partly  to  use  the  brick. 
These  are  sold  for  three  or  four  cents  apiece 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    183 

and  carted  all  around  on  the  big  Chinese 
wheelbarrow,  by  man  power,  of  course.  The 
compound  wall  of  this  house  is  made  of 
them,  and  they  have  several  thousand  of 
them  stored  at  the  University  grounds.  They 
scrape  them  off  by  hand;  you  can  get  some 
idea  of  the  relative  yalue  of  material  and 
human  beings.  I  started  out  to  speak  of 
the  view — typical  China,  deforested  hills 
close  by,  all  pockmarked  at  the  bottom  with 
graves,  like  animal  burrows  and  golf  bunk- 
ers; peasants'  stone  houses  with  thatched 
roofs,  looking  like  Ireland  or  France; 
orchards  of  pomegranates  with  lovely  scar- 
let blossoms  and  other  f riuts ;  some  rice  fields 
already  growing,  others  being  set  out,  ten 
or  a  dozen  people  at  work  in  one  patch;  gar- 
den patches,  largely  melons ;  in  the  distance 
the  wall  stretching  out  for  miles,  a  hill  with 
a  pagoda,  a  lotus  lake,  and  in  the  far  dis- 
tance the  blue  mountains — also  the  city,  not 
so  much  of  which  was  visible,  however. 
One  of  the  interesting  things  in  moving 


184    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

about  is  the  fact  that  only  once  in  a  while 
do  I  see  a  face  typically  Chinese.  I  forget 
they  are  Chinese  a  great  deal  of  the  time. 
They  just  seem  like  dirty,  poor  miserable 
people  anywhere.  They  are  cheerful  but 
not  playful.  I  should  like  to  give  a  few 
millions  for  playgrounds  and  toys  and  play 
leaders.  I  can't  but  think  that  a  great  deal 
of  the  lack  of  initiative  and  the  let-George- 
do-it,  which  is  the  curse  of  China,  is  con- 
nected with  the  fact  that  the  children  are 
grown  up  so  soon.  There  are  less  than  a 
hundred  schools  for  children  in  this  city  of 
a  third  of  a  million,  and  the  schools  only 
have  a  few  hundred — two  or  three  at  most. 
The  children  on  the  street  are  always  just 
looking  and  watching,  wise,  human  looking, 
and  reasonably  cheerful,  but  old  and  serious 
beyond  bearing.  Of  course  many  are  work- 
ing at  the  loom,  or  when  they  are  younger 
at  reeling.  This  is  a  good  deal  of  a  silk 
place,  and  we  visited  one  government  fac- 
tory with  several  hundred  people  at  work; 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    185 

this  one  at  least  makes  out  to  be  self-sup- 
porting. There  isn't  a  power  reeler  or  loom 
in  the  town,  nor  yet  a  loom  of  the  Jacquard 
type.  Sometimes  a  boy  sits  up  top  and 
shifts  things,  sometimes  they  have  six  or 
eight  foot  treadles.  A  lot  of  the  reeling  isn't 
even  foot  power — just  hand,  though  their 
hand  reeler  is  much  more  ingenious  than  the 
Japanese  one.  There  seem  so  many  places 
to  take  hold  and  improve  things  and  yet  all 
of  these  are  so  tied  together,  and  change  is 
so  hard  that  it  isn't  much  wonder  everybody 
who  stays  here  gets  more  or  less  Chinafied 
and  takes  it  out  in  liking  the  Chinese  per- 
sonally for  their  amiable  qualities. 

Just  now  the  students  are  forming  a 
patriotic  league  because  of  the  present  po* 
litical  situation,  Japanese  boycott,  etc.  But 
the  teachers  of  the  Nanking  University  here 
say  that  instead  of  contenting  themselves 
with  the  two  or  three  things  they  might  well 
do,  they  are  laying  out  an  ambitious  scheme 
covering  everything,  and  their  energy  will 


186    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

be  exhausted  when  they  get  their  elaborate 
constitution  formed,  or  they  will  meet  so 
many  difficulties  that  they  will  get  discour- 
aged even  with  the  things  they  might  do.  I 
don't  know  whether  I  told  you  about  the 
clerk  in  the  tailor  shop  in  Shanghai;  after 
taking  the  usual  fatalistic  attitude  that 
nothing  could  be  done  with  the  present  sit- 
uation, he  said  the  boycott  was  a  good  thing 
but  "Chinaman  he  got  weak  mind;  pretty 
soon  he  forget." 

In  various  places  there  are  lots  of  straw 
hats  hung  up  painted  in  Chinese  characters 
where  they  have  stopped  passersby  and 
taken  their  hats  away  because  they  were 
Japanese  made.  It  is  all  good  natured  and 
nobody  objects.  There  are  policemen  in 
front  of  Japanese  stores,  and  they  allow  no 
one  to  enter;  they  are  "protecting"  the 
Japanese.  This  is  characteristic  of  China. 
The  policemen  all  carry  guns  with  bayonets 
attached;  they  are  very  numerous  and 
slouch  around  looking  bored  to  death.  The 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    187 

only  other  class  as  bored  looking  is  the  dogs, 
which  are  even  more  numerous,  and  lie 
stretched  out  at  full  length,  never  curled  up, 
and  never  by  any  chance  doing  anything. 

We  visited  the  old  examination  halls 
which  are  now  being  torn  down.  These 
are  the  cells,  about  25,000  in  number,  where 
the  candidates  for  degrees  used  to  be  shut 
up  during  the  examination  period.  Said 
cells  are  built  in  long  rows,  under  a  lean-to 
roof,  mostly  opening  face  to  face  on  an  open 
corridor,  which  is  uncovered.  Some  of  them 
face  against  a  wall  which  is  the  back  of 
the  next  row  of  cells.  Cells  are  two  and 
one-half  feet  wide  by  four  long.  In  them 
are  two  ridges  along  the  wall  on  each  side, 
one  at  the  height  of  a  seat,  the  other  at  the 
height  of  a  table.  On  these  they  laid  two 
boards,  two  and  a  half  feet  long,  and  this 
was  their  furniture.  They  sat  and  wrote 
and  cooked  and  ate  and  slept  in  these  cells. 
In  case  it  did  not  rain,  their  feet  could  stick 
out  into  the  corridor  so  they  might  stretch 


138    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

out  on  the  hard  floor.  The  exams  lasted 
eight  days,  divided  into  three  divisions. 
They  went  in  on  the  eighth  day  of  the 
eighth  moon  in  the  evening.  They  wrote  the 
first  subject  until  the  afternoon  of  the  tenth. 
Then  they  left  for  the  night.  On  the  after- 
noon of  the  eleventh  they  came  in  for  the 
second  subject  and  wrote  till  the  afternoon 
of  the  thirteenth,  when  there  was  another  day 
off.  On  the  evening  of  the  fourteenth  they 
re-entered  the  cell  for  the  third  period  and 
that  ended  on  the  evening  of  the  sixteenth. 
They  had  free  communication  with  each 
other  in  the  corridors,  which  were  closed  and 
locked.  No  one  could  approach  them  from 
the  outside  for  any  reason.  Often  they  died. 
But  if  they  could  only  get  put  into  a  cor- 
ridor with  a  friend  who  knew,  the  biggest 
fool  in  China  could  get  his  paper  written 
for  him,  and  he  could  pass  and  become  an 
M.  A.,  or  something  corresponding  to  that 
degree.  Thus  were  the  famous  literati  of 
China  produced.  Preparation  for  the  exam 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    189 

was  not  the  affair  of  the  government,  and 
might  be  acquired  in  any  possible  way. 
The  houses  of  the  examiners  are  still  in 
good  condition  and  might  be  made  into  a 
school  very  easily.  But  do  you  think  they 
will  do  that?  Not  at  all.  The  government 
has  not  ordered  a  school  there,  and  so  they 
will  be  torn  down  or  else  used  for  some  offi- 
cial work.  You  can  have  no  conception  of 
how  far  the  officialism  goes  till  you  see  it. 
We  also  visited  a  Confucian  Temple,  big 
and  used  twice  each  year.  It  is  like  all 
temples  in  that  it  is  covered  with  the  dust 
of  many  years'  accumulation.  If  you  were 
to  be  dropped  in  any  Chinese  temple  you 
would  think  you  had  landed  in  a  deserted 
and  forgotten  ruin  out  of  reach  of  man. 
We  went  to  the  Temple  of  Hell  on  Sun- 
day, and  the  gentleman  who  accompanied 
us  suggested  to  the  priest  that  the  images 
ought  to  be  dusted  off.  "Yes,"  said  the 
priest,  "it  would  be  better  if  they  were." 


190    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


NANKING,  Thursday,  May  22. 

The  returned  students  from  Japan  hate 
Japan,  but  they  are  all  at  loggers  with  the 
returned  students  from  America,  and  their 
separate  organizations  cannot  get  together. 
Many  returned  students  have  no  jobs,  ap- 
parently because  they  will  not  go  into  busi- 
ness or  begin  at  the  bottom  anywhere,  and 
there  is  strong  hostility  against  them  on  the 
part  of  the  officials. 

As  a  sample  of  the  way  business  is  done 
here,  we  have  just  had  an  express  letter 
from  Shanghai  which  took  four  days  to 
arrive.  It  should  arrive  in  twelve  hours. 
People  use  express  letters  rather  than  the 
telegraph  because  they  are  quicker.  You 
may  spend  as  much  time  as  you  like  or 
don't  like,  wondering  why  your  express 
letter  did  not  reach  you  on  time;  you  do  it 
at  your  own  risk  and  expense.  The  Chinese 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    191 

do  not  juggle  with  foreigners  as  the  Japa- 
nese do,  in  the  conscious  sense,  they  simply 
drift,  they  juggle  with  themselves  and  with 
each  other  all  the  time. 

This  house  is  four  miles  from  the  railroad 
station.  There  is  no  street  car  here;  there 
are  many  'rickshas,  a  few  carriages,  still 
fewer  autos.  There  are  no  sedan  chairs,  at 
least  I  don't  remember  seeing  any,  but  at 
Chienkiang,  where  we  went  the  other  day, 
the  streets  are  so  narrow  that  chairs  are  the 
main  means  of  conveyance.  The  'ricksha 
men  here  pay  forty  cents  a  day  to  the  city 
for  their  vehicles,  which  are  all  alike  and 
very  poor  ones.  They  make  a  little  more 
than  that  sum  for  themselves.  In  Shanghai 
they  pay  ninety  cents  a  day  for  their  right 
to  work,  and  earn  from  one  dollar  to  a  pos- 
sible dollar  and  a  half  for  themselves. 

I  said  to  a  young  professor,  the  other 
day,  that  China  was  still  supporting  three 
idle  classes  of  people.  He  looked  surprised, 
though  a  student  and  critic  of  social  condi- 


192    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

tions,  and  asked  me  who  they  were.  When 
I  asked  him  if  that  couldn't  be  said  of  the 
officials,  the  priests,  and  the  army,  he  said 
yes,  it  could.  Thus  far  and  no  further, 
seems  to  be  their  motto,  both  in  thinking 
and  acting,  especially  in  acting. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    193 


NANKING,  May  23. 

I  don't  believe  anybody  knows  what  the 
political  prospects  are;  this  students'  move- 
ment has  introduced  a  new  and  uncalcul- 
able  factor — and  all  in  the  three  weeks  we 
have  been  here.  You  heard  nothing  but 
gloom  about  political  China  at  first,  corrupt 
and  traitorous  officials,  soldiers  only  paid 
banditti,  the  officers  getting  the  money  from 
Japan  to  pay  them  with,  no  organizing 
power  or  cohesion  among  the  Chinese;  and 
then  the  students  take  things  into  their 
hands,  and  there  is  animation  and  a  sudden 
buzz.  There  are  a  hundred  students  being 
coached  here  to  go  out  and  make  speeches, 
they  will  have  a  hundred  different  stations 
scattered  through  the  city.  It  is  also  said 
the  soldiers  are  responding  to  the  patriotic 
propaganda ;  a  man  told  us  that  the  soldiers 


194    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

wept  when  some  students  talked  to  them 
about  the  troubles  of  China,  and  the  soldiers 
of  Shantung,  the  province  turned  over  to 
Japan,  have  taken  the  lead  in  telegraphing 
the  soldiers  in  the  other  provinces  to  resist 
the  corrupt  traitors.  Of  course,  what  they 
all  are  afraid  of  is  that  this  is  a  flash  in  the 
pan,  but  they  are  already  planning  to  make 
the  student  movement  permanent  and  to 
find  something  for  them  to  do  after  this  is 
settled.  Their  idea  here  is  to  reorganize 
them  for  popular  propaganda  for  education, 
more  schools,  teaching  adults,  social  service, 
etc. 

It  is  very  interesting  to  compare  the  men 
who  have  been  abroad  with  those  who 
haven't — I  mean  students  and  teachers. 
Those  who  haven't  are  sort  of  helpless, 
practically;  the  height  of  literary  and 
academic  minds.  Those  who  have  studied 
abroad,  even  in  Japan,  have  much  more  go 
to  them.  Certainly  the  classicists  in  educa- 
tion have  a  noble  example  here  in  China  of 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    195 

what  their  style  of  education  can  do  if  only 
kept  up  long  enough.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  must  be  something  esthetically  very 
fine  in  the  old  Chinese  literature;  even 
many  of  the  modern  young  men  have  a 
sentimental  attachment  to  it,  precisely  like 
that  which  they  have  to  the  fine  writing  of 
their  characters.  They  talk  about  them 
with  all  the  art  jargon:  "Notice  the 
strength  of  this  down  stroke,  and  the 
spirituality  of  the  cross  stroke  and  elegant 
rhythm  of  the  composition."  When  we 
visited  a  temple  the  other  day,  one  of  the 
chief  Buddhist  shrines  in  China,  we  were 
presented  with  a  rubbing  of  the  writing  of 
the  man  who  is  said  to  be  the  finest  writer 
ever  known  in  China — these  characters  were 
engraved  in  the  rock  from  his  writing  some 
centuries  ago — I  don't  know  how  many.  It 
is  very  easy  to  see  how  cultivated  people 
take  refuge  in  art  and  spirituality  when 
politics  are  corrupt  and  the  general  state  of 
social  life  is  discouraging;  you  see  it  here, 


196    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

and  how  in  the  end  it  increases  the  de- 
cadence. 

I  think  we  wrote  you  from  Shanghai  that 
we  had  been  introduced  to  all  the  mys- 
teries of  China,  ancient  eggs,  sharks'  fins, 
birds'  nests,  pigeon  eggs,  the  eight  pre- 
cious treasures,  rice  pudding,  and  so  on. 
We  continue  to  have  Chinese  meals;  yes- 
terday lunch  in  the  home  of  an  adviser  to 
a  military  official.  He  is  very  outspoken, 
doesn't  trim  in  politics,  and  gives  you  a 
more  hopeful  feeling  about  China.  The 
most  depressing  thing  is  hearing  it  said, 
"When  we  get  a  stable  government,  we  can 
do  so  and  so,  but  there  is  no  use  at  present." 
But  this  man's  attitude  is  rather,  "Damn 
the  government  and  go  ahead  and  do  some- 
thing." He  is  very  proud  of  having  a 
"happy,  Christian  home"  and  doesn't  cover 
up  his  Christianity  as  most  of  the  official 
and  wealthy  class  seem  to  do.  He  expects 
to  have  his  daughters  educated  in  America, 
one  in  medicine  and  one  in  home  affairs,  and 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    197 

to  have  help  in  a  campaign  for  changing 
the  character  of  the  Chinese  home — from 
these  big  aggregates  of  fifty  people  or  so 
living  together,  married  children,  servants, 
etc.,  where  he  says  the  waste  is  enormous, 
to  say  nothing  of  bickerings  and  jealousies. 
In  the  old  type  of  well-to-do  home,  break- 
fast would  begin  for  someone  about  seven, 
and  someone  would  have  cooking  done  for 
him  to  eat  till  noon ;  then  about  two,  visitors 
would  come,  and  the  servants  would  be 
ordered  to  cook  something  for  each  caller — 
absolutely  no  organization  or  planning  in 
anything,  according  to  him, 


198    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


NANKING,  Monday,  May  26. 

The  trouble  among  the  students  is  daily 
getting  worse,  and  even  the  most  sympa- 
thetic among  the  faculties  are  getting  more 
and  more  anxious.  The  governor  of  this 
province,  capital  here,  is  thought  most 
liberal,  and  he  has  promised  to  support  these 
advanced  measures  in  education.  Last 
Friday  the  assembly  passed  a  bill  cutting 
down  the  educational  appropriation  and 
raising  their  own  salaries.  Therefore  the 
students  here  are  now  all  stirred  up  and  the 
faculties  are  afraid  they  cannot  be  kept  in 
control  until  they  are  well  enough  organ- 
ized to  make  a  strike  effective.  At  the  same 
time  our  friends  are  kept  busy  running  up 
to  the  assembly  and  the  governor.  The 
latter  has  promised  to  veto  the  bill  when  it 
is  sent  to  him  from  the  senate.  But  the 
students  are  getting  anxious  to  go  to  the 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    199 

senate  themselves.  Our  friends  say  it  costs 
so  much  for  these  men  to  get  elected  that 
they  have  to  get  it  all  back  after  they  get 
into  office.  A  missionary  says:  "Let's  go 
out  and  shoot  them  all,  they  are  just  as 
bad  as  Peking,  and  if  they  had  the  same 
chance  they  would  sell  out  the  whole  coun- 
try to  Japan  or  to  anyone  else."  Certainly 
China  needs  education  all  along  the  line, 
but  they  never  will  get  it  as  long  as  they 
try  in  little  bits.  So  maybe  they  will  have 
to  be  pushed  to  the  very  bottom  before  they 
will  be  ready  to  go  the  whole  hog  or  none. 
Yesterday  a  Chinese  lady  had  a  tea  for 
me  and  asked  the  Taitai,  as  the  wives  of  the 
officials  are  called,  corresponding  to  the 
court  ladies  of  previous  times.  As  a  func- 
tion this  was  interesting,  for  every  woman 
brought  her  servant  and  most  of  her  chil- 
dren. Some  appeared  to  have  two  servants, 
one  big-footed  maid  for  herself  and  one 
bound-footed  as  a  nurse  for  the  children. 
Her  own  servant  hands  her  the  cup  of  tea. 


200    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

All  the  children  are  fed  at  the  same  time  as 
the  grown-ups,  and  after  their  superiors  the 
servants  get  something  in  the  kitchen.  I 
don't  know  yet  what  that  something  is,  but 
probably  an  inferior  tea.  The  tea  we  drank 
is  that  famous  jasmine  tea  from  Hang- 
chow.  It  costs  something  like  fifteen  dol- 
lars a  pound  here.  It  is  very  good,  with  a 
peculiar  spicy  flavor,  almost  musky  and 
smoky,  from  the  jasmine  combined  with  the 
tea  flavor,  which  is  strong.  It  is  a  delicious 
brown  tea,  but  I  do  not  like  to  drink  it  so 
well  as  I  like  the  best  green  tea. 

Well,  I  wish  you  could  see  the  Taitai. 
The  wife  of  the  governor  is  about  twenty- 
five,  or  may  be  a  little  more.  She  is  a  sub- 
stantial young  person,  with  full-grown  feet, 
a  pale  blue  dress  of  skirt  and  coat  scalloped 
on  the  edges  and  bound  with  black  satin, 
her  nice  hair  parted  to  one  side  on  the  right 
and  pinned  above  her  left  ear  with  a  white 
artificial  rose.  Her  maid  had  black  coat 
and  trousers.  She  had  some  bracelets  on, 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    201 

but  her  jewels  were  less  beautiful  than  those 
of  the  other  women.  One  very  pretty 
woman  had  buttons  on  her  coat  of  emeralds 
surrounded  with  pearls,  and  on  her  arm  a 
lovely  bracelet  of  pearls.  After  tea,  the 
great  ladies  went  into  an  inner  room,  with 
the  exception  of  two.  One  of  these  two  had 
a  very  sad  face.  I  watched  her  and  finally 
had  a  chance  to  ask  her  how  many  children 
she  had.  She  said  she  had  none,  but  she 
would  like  to  have  a  daughter.  I  was  told 
after  that  her  husband  was  a  Christian 
pastor  and  she  was  trying  to  be  Christian. 
The  other  one  who  stayed  was  the  pretty 
one  with  the  emerald  buttons.  I  finally  de- 
cided the  ladies  had  left  us  to  play  their 
cards  and  asked  if  I  might  go  and  see  them. 
They  were  not  playing  cards,  but  had  just 
gone  off  to  gossip  among  themselves,  prob- 
ably about  the  foreigners.  One  of  the  ladies 
said  she  would  take  me  some  day  to  see  their 
card  games.  It  is  said  they  play  in  the 
morning  and  in  the  afternoon  and  all  the 


202    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

night  till  the  next  morning  when  they  go  to 
bed.  It  is  commonly  said  this  is  all  they 
do,  and  the  losses  are  very  disastrous  some- 
times. 

But  they  were  not  playing  then  and  came 
back,  some  of  them  with  their  children,  and 
sat  in  the  rows  of  chairs,  sixteen  of  them, 
and  some  amahs  around  the  room,  while  I 
talked  to  them.  I  told  stories  about  what 
the  American  women  did  in  the  war  and 
they  stared  with  amazement.  I  had  to  ex- 
plain what  a  gas  mask  is,  but  they  knew 
what  killing  is  and  what  high  class  is.  Their 
giggles  were  quite  encouraging  to  inter- 
course. A  nice  young  lady  from  the  college 
interpreted,  and  when  I  stopped  I  asked 
them  to  tell  me  something  about  their  lives. 
So  the  governor's  wife  was  at  last  persuaded 
to  give  an  account  of  how  she  brought  up 
her  children.  They  are  all  free  from  self- 
consciousness,  and  though  they  have  little 
manners  in  our  sense  of  the  word,  they  have 
a  self-possession  and  gentleness  combined 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    203 

which  gives  a  very  graceful  appearance. 
The  governor's  wife  says  she  has  two  little 
boys,  the  eldest  six  years  of  age.  In  the 
morning  he  has  a  Chinese  tutor.  After  din- 
ner, she  teaches  him  music,  of  which  she  is 
very  fond.  After  that  he  plays  till  five- 
thirty,  has  supper,  plays  again  a  little  while 
before  going  to  bed,  and  then  bed.  At  thir- 
teen the  boy  will  be  sent  away  to  school.  I 
asked  her  what  about  girls,  and  she  said  that 
her  little  niece  was  the  first  one  in  her  family 
to  be  sent  to  school,  but  this  ten-year-old  one 
is  in  Tientsin  at  a  boarding  school. 


204    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


PEKING,  Sunday,  June  1. 

We  met  a  young  man  here  from  an  in- 
terior province  who  is  trying  to  get  money 
for  teachers  who  haven't  received  their  pay 
for  a  long  time.  Meantime  over  sixty  per 
cent  of  the  entire  national  expenses  is  going 
to  the  military,  and  the  army  is  worse  than 
useless.  In  many  provinces  it  is  composed 
of  brigands  and  everywhere  is  practically 
under  the  control  of  the  tuchuns  or  military 
governors,  who  are  corrupt  and  use  the  pay 
roll  to  increase  their  graft  and  the  army  to 
increase  their  power  of  local  oppression, 
while  the  head  military  man  is  openly  pro- 
Japanese. 

There  is  a  lull  in  our  affairs  just  now. 
We  agreed  yesterday  that  never  in  our  lives 
had  we  begun  to  learn  as  much  as  in  the 
last  four  months.  And  the  last  month  par- 
ticularly, there  has  been  almost  too  much 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    £05 

food  to  be  digestible.  Talk  about  the  secre- 
tive and  wily  East.  Compared,  say,  with 
Europe,  they  hand  information  out  to  you 
here  on  a  platter  (though  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted the  labels  are  sometimes  mixed)  and 
sandbag  you  with  it. 

Yesterday  we  went  to  the  Western  Hills 
where  are  the  things  you  see  in  the  pictures, 
including  the  stone  boat,  the  base  of  which 
is  really  marble  and  as  fine  as  the  pictures. 
But  all  the  rest  of  it  is  just  theatrical 
fake,  more  or  less  peeling  off  at  that.  How- 
ever, it  is  as  wonderful  as  it  is  cracked  up 
to  be,  and  in  some  ways  more  systematic 
than  Versailles,  which  is  what  you  naturally 
compare  it  to.  The  finest  thing  architec- 
turally is  a  Buddhist  temple  with  big  tiles, 
each  of  which  has  a  Buddha  on — for  fur- 
ther details  see  movie  or  something.  We 
walked  somewhat  higher  than  Russian  Hill, 
including  a  journey  through  the  caves  in  an 
artificial  mountain  such  as  the  Chinese  de- 
light in,  clear  up  to  this  temple.  The 


206    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

Manchu  family  seems  to  own  the  thing  yet, 
and  charge  a  big  sum,  or  rather  several 
sums,  a  la  Niagara  Falls,  to  get  about — 
another  evidence  that  China  needs  another 
revolution,  or  rather  a  revolution,  the  first 
one  having  got  rid  of  a  dynasty  and  left, 
as  per  my  previous  letters,  a  lot  of  corrupt 
governors  in  charge  of  chaos.  The  only 
thing  that  I  can  see  that  keeps  things  to- 
gether at  all  is  that  while  a  lot  of  these  gen- 
erals and  governors  would  like  to  grab  more 
for  their  individual  selves,  they  are  all  afraid 
the  whole  thing  would  come  down  round 
their  ears  if  anyone  made  a  definite  move. 
Status  quo  is  China's  middle  name,  mostly 
status  and  a  little  quo.  I  have  one  more 
national  motto  to  add  to  "You  Never  Can 
Tell"  and  "Let  George  Do  It."  It  is, 
"That  is  very  bad."  Instead  of  concealing 
things,  they  expose  all  their  weak  and  bad 
points  very  freely,  and  after  setting  them 
forth  most  calmly  and  objectively,  say 
"That  is  very  bad."  I  don't  know  whether 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    207 

it  is  possible  for  a  people  to  be  too  reason- 
able, but  it  is  certainly  too  possible  to  take 
it  out  in  being  reasonable — and  that's  them. 
However,  it  makes  them  wonderful  com- 
panions. You  can  hardly  blame  the  Japan- 
ese for  wanting  to  run  them  and  supply  the 
necessary  pep  when  they  decline  to  run 
themselves.  You  certainly  see  the  other 
side  of  the  famous  one-track  mind  of  Japan 
over  here,  as  well  as  of  other  things.  If  you 
keep  doing  something  all  the  time,  I  don't 
know  whether  you  need  even  a  single  track 
mind.  All  you  have  to  do  is  to  keep  going 
where  you  started  for,  while  others  keep 
wobbling  or  never  get  started. 

Well,  this  morning  we  went  to  the  famous 
museum,  and  there  is  one  thing  where  China 
is  still  ahead.  It  is  housed  in  some  of  the 
old  palaces  and  audience  halls  of  the  inner, 
or  purple,  forbidden  City.  With  the  yellow 
porcelain  roofs,  and  the  blue  and  green  and 
gold,  and  the  red  walls,  it  is  really  the  bar- 
baric splendor  you  read  about,  and  about 


208    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

the  first  thing  that  comes  up  to  the  conven- 
tional idea  of  what  is  Oriental.  The  Hindoo 
influence  is  much  stronger  here  than  any- 
where else  we  have  been,  or  else  really  Thi- 
betan, I  suppose,  and  many  things  remind 
one  of  the  Moorish.  The  city  of  Peking 
was  a  thousand  years  building,  and  was  laid 
out  on  a  plan  when  the  capitals  of  Europe 
were  purely  haphazard,  so  there  is  no  doubt 
they  have  organizing  power  all  right  if  they 
care  to  use  it.  The  museum  is  literally  one 
of  treasures,  porcelains,  bronzes,  jade,  etc., 
not  an  historic  or  antiquated  museum.  It 
costs  ten  cents  to  get  into  the  park  here  and 
much  more  into  the  museum,  a  dollar  or 
more,  I  guess,  and  we  got  the  impression 
that  it  was  fear  of  the  crowd  and  the  popu- 
lace rather  than  the  money  which  controls; 
the  rate  is  too  high  for  revenue  purposes. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    209 


PEKING,  June  1. 

We  have  just  seen  a  few  hundred  girls 
march  away  from  the  American  Board  Mis- 
sion school  to  go  to  see  the  President  to 
ask  him  to  release  the  boy  students  who  are 
in  prison  for  making  speeches  on  the  street. 
To  say  that  life  in  China  is  exciting  is  to  put 
it  fairly.  We  are  witnessing  the  birth  of  a 
nation,  and  birth  always  comes  hard.  I  may 
as  well  begin  at  the  right  end  and  tell  you 
what  has  happened  while  things  have  been 
moving  so  fast  I  could  not  get  time  to  write. 
Yesterday  we  went  to  see  the  temples  of 
Western  Hills,  conducted  by  one  of  the 
members  of  the  Ministry  of  Education.  As 
we  were  running  along  the  big  street  that 
passes  the  city  wall  we  saw  students  speak- 
ing to  groups  of  people.  This  was  the  first 
time  the  students  had  appeared  for  several 
days.  We  asked  the  official  if  they  would 


210    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

not  be  arrested,  and  he  said,  "No,  not  if  they 
keep  within  the  law  and  do  not  make  any 
trouble  among  the  people."  This  morning 
when  we  got  the  paper  it  was  full  of  nothing 
else.  The  worst  thing  is  that  the  University 
has  been  turned  into  a  prison  with  military 
tents  all  around  it  and  a  notice  on  the  out- 
side that  this  is  a  prison  for  students  who 
disturb  the  peace  by  making  speeches.  As 
this  is  all  illegal,  it  amounts  to  a  military 
seizure  of  the  University  and  therefore  all 
the  faculty  will  have  to  resign.  They  are 
to  have  a  meeting  this  afternoon  to  discuss 
the  matter.  After  that  is  over,  we  will 
probably  know  what  has  happened  again. 
The  other  thing  we  heard  was  that  in  addi- 
tion to  the  two  hundred  students  locked  up 
in  the  Law  Building,  two  students  were 
taken  to  the  Police  rooms  and  flogged  on  the 
back.  Those  two  students  were  making  a 
speech  and  were  arrested  and  taken  before 
the  officers  of  the  gendarmerie.  Instead  of 
shutting  up  as  they  were  expected  to  do,  the 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    211 

boys  asked  some  questions  of  these  officers 
that  were  embarrassing  to  answer.  The 
officers  then  had  them  flogged  on  the  back. 
Thus  far  no  one  has  been  able  to  see  any  of 
the  officers.  If  the  officers  denied  the  accu- 
sation then  the  reporters  would  ask  to  see 
the  two  prisoners  on  the  principle  that  the 
officers  could  have  no  reason  for  refusing 
that  request  unless  the  story  were  true.  We 
saw  students  making  speeches  this  morning 
about  eleven,  when  we  started  to  look  for 
houses,  and  heard  later  that  they  had  been 
arrested,  that  they  carried  tooth  brushes  and 
towels  in  their  pockets.  Some  stories  say 
that  not  two  hundred  but  a  thousand  have 
been  arrested.  There  are  about  ten  thou- 
sand striking  in  Peking  alone.  The  march- 
ing out  of  those  girls  was  evidently  a  shock 
to  their  teachers  and  many  mothers  were 
there  to  see  them  off.  The  girls  were  going 
to  walk  to  the  palace  of  the  President,  which 
is  some  long  distance  from  the  school.  If  he 
does  not  see  them,  they  will  remain  standing 


213    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

outside  all  night  and  they  will  stay  there 
till  he  does  see  them.  I  fancy  people  will 
take  them  food.  We  heard  the  imprisoned 
students  got  bedding  at  four  this  morning 
but  no  food  till  after  that  time.  There  is 
water  in  the  building  and  there  is  room  for 
them  to  lie  on  the  floor.  They  are  cleaner 
than  they  would  be  in  jail,  and  of  course 
much  happier  for  being  together. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN   213 


PEKING,  June  2. 

Maybe  you  would  like  to  know  a  little 
about  how  we  look  this  morning  and  how  we 
are  living.  In  the  first  place,  this  is  a  big 
hotel  with  a  bath  in  each  room.  On  a  big 
street  opposite  to  us  is  the  wall  of  the  lega- 
tion quarter,  which  has  trees  in  it  and  big 
roofs  which  represent  all  that  China  ought 
to  have  and  has  not.  The  weather  is  like 
our  hot  July,  except  that  it  is  drier  than  the 
August  drought  on  Long  Island.  The 
streets  of  Peking  are  the  widest  in  the  world, 
I  guess,  and  ours  leads  by  the  red  walls  of 
the  Chinese  city  with  the  wonderful  gates 
of  which  you  see  pictures.  It  is  macadam- 
ized in  the  middle,  but  on  each  side  of  it 
run  wider  roads,  which  are  used  for  the 
traffic.  Thank  your  stars  there  are  good 
horses  in  Peking;  men  do  not  pull  all  the 
heavy  loads.  The  two  side  roads  are  worn 


214    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

down  in  deep  ruts  and  these  ruts  are  filled 
with  dust  like  finest  ashes,  and  all  thrown  up 
into  the  air  whenever  a  man  steps  on  it  or 
a  cart  moves  through.  Our  room  faces  the 
south  on  this  road.  All  day  long  the  sun 
pours  through  the  bamboo  shades  and  the 
hot  air.  brings  in  that  gray  dust,  and  every- 
thing you  touch,  including  your  own  skin, 
is  gritty  and  has  a  queer  dry  feeling  that 
makes  you  think  you  ought  to  run  for  water. 
I  am  learning  to  shut  the  windows  and  inner 
blinds  afternoons.  Isn't  it  strange  that  in 
the  latitude  of  New  York  this  drought 
should  be  expected  every  spring?  In  spite 
of  all  this  the  fields  have  crops  growing, 
thinly,  to  be  sure,  on  the  hard  gray  fields. 
There  are  very  few  trees,  and  they  are  not 
of  the  biggest.  The  grain  is  already  about 
fit  to  cut,  and  the  onions  are  ripe.  After 
a  while  it  will  rain  and  rain  much  and  then 
new  crops  will  be  put  in.  The  flowers  are 
almost  gone  and  I  am  sorry  that  we  did  not 
see  the  famous  peonies.  You  will  be  inter- 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    215 

ested  to  know  that  they  keep  the  peonies 
small;  even  the  tree  kind  are  cut  down  till 
they  are  the  size  of  those  little  ones  of  mine. 
The  tuber  peonies  are  transplanted  each 
year  or  in  some  way  kept  small  and  the  blos- 
soms are  lovely  and  little.  I  have  seen  white 
rose  peonies  and  at  first  thought  they  were 
roses.  The  buds  look  almost  like  the  buds 
of  our  big  white  roses  and  they  are  very 
fragrant.  The  peony  beds  are  laid  out  in 
terraces  held  in  place  by  brick  walls,  usually 
oblong  or  oval,  something  like  a  huge  pud- 
ding mold  on  a  table.  Other  times  they 
are  planted  on  the  flat  and  surrounded  by 
bamboo  fences  of  fancy  design  and  geomet- 
rical pattern,  usually  with  a  square  form  to 
include  each  division.  The  inner  city  has 
many  peony  beds  of  that  sort,  both  the  tree 
and  tuber  kind,  but  they  have  only  leaves  to 
show  now. 

Yesterday  we  went  to  the  summer  palace 
and  to-day  we  are  going  to  the  museum. 
That  is  really  inside  the  Forbidden  City,  so 


216    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

at  last  we  shall  set  foot  on  the  sacred 
ground.  The  summer  palace  is  really  won- 
derful, but  sad  now,  like  all  things  made  on 
too  ambitious  a  scale  to  fit  into  the  uses  of 
life.  There  is  a  mile  of  loggia  ornamented 
with  the  green  and  blue  and  red  paintings 
which  you  see  imitated.  Through  a  window 
we  had  a  peek  at  the  famous  portrait  of  old 
Tsu  Hsu  and  she  looks  just  as  she  did  when 
I  saw  it  exhibited  in  New  York.  The 
strange  thing  about  it  is  that  it  is  still  owned 
by  the  Hsu  family.  Huge  rolls  of  costly 
rugs  and  curtains  lie  in  piles  round  the  room 
and  everything  is  covered  with  this  fine  dust 
so  thick  that  it  is  not  possible  to  tell  the  color 
of  a  table  top.  Cloissonne  vases,  or  rather 
images  of  the  famous  blue  ware  stand 
under  the  old  lady's  portrait,  and  everything 
is  going  to  rack  and  ruin.  Meantime  we 
wandered  around,  planning  how  it  could  be 
made  over  into  use  when  the  revolution 
comes.  Get  rid  of  the  idea  that  China  has 
had  a  revolution  and  is  a  republic;  that  point 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    217 

is  just  where  we  have  been  deceived  in  the 
United  States.  China  is  at  present  the 
rotten  crumbling  remnant  of  the  old  bu- 
reaucracy that  surrounded  the  corruption  of 
the  Manchus  and  that  made  them  possible. 
The  little  Emperor  is  living  here  in  his  palace 
surrounded  by  his  eunuchs  and  his  tutors 
and  his  two  mothers.  He  is  fourteen  and  it 
is  really  funny  to  think  that  they  have  just 
left  him  Emperor,  but  as  he  has  not  money 
except  what  the  republic  votes  him  from 
year  to  year,  nobody  worries  about  him, 
unless  it  is  the  Japanese,  who  want  the  im- 
perial government  restored  until  they  get 
ready  to  take  it  themselves.  It  looks  as  if 
they  might  be  ready  now  except  for  the 
nudge  which  has  just  been  given  to  the 
peace  conference.  You  had  better  read  a 
book  about  this  situation,  for  it  is  the  most 
surprising  affair  in  a  lifetime. 

Yesterday  we  went  to  see  a  friend's  house. 
It  is  interesting  and  I  should  like  to  live  in 
one  like  it.  There  is  no  water  except  what 


218    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

the  water  man  brings  every  day.  This  little 
house  has  eighteen  rooms  around  a  court. 
It  means  four  separate  roofs  and  going  out- 
doors to  get  from  one  to  another.  When 
the  mercury  is  at  twenty  below  zero  it  would 
mean  that  just  the  same.  All  the  ground 
floors  have  stone  floors.  We  did  not  see  all 
the  rooms;  there  are  paper  windows  in  some 
and  glass  windows  in  some.  In  summer 
they  put  on  a  temporary  roof  of  mats  over 
the  court.  It  is  higher  than  the  roofs  and 
so  allows  ventilation  and  gives  good  shade. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    219 


June  5. 

This  is  Thursday  morning,  and  last  night 
we  heard  that  about  one  thousand  students 
were  arrested  the  day  before.  Yesterday 
afternoon  a  friend  got  a  pass  which  per- 
mitted him  to  enter  the  building  where  the 
students  were  confined.  They  have  filled  up 
the  building  of  Law,  and  have  begun  on  the 
Science  building,  in  consequence  of  which  the 
faculty  have  to  go  to  the  Missionary  build- 
ings to-day  to  hold  their  faculty  meeting. 
At  four  yesterday  afternoon,  the  prisoners 
who  had  been  put  in  that  day  at  ten  had 
had  no  food.  One  of  our  friends  went  out 
and  got  the  University  to  appropriate  some 
money  and  they  ordered  a  carload  of  bread 
sent  in.  This  bread  means  some  little  bis- 
cuit sometimes  called  raised  biscuit  at  home. 
I  think  carload  means  one  of  the  carts  in 
which  they  are  delivered.  At  any  rate,  the 


220    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

boys  had  some  food,  though  not  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  police.  On  the  whole,  the 
checkmate  of  the  police  seems  surely  im- 
pending. They  will  soon  have  the  buildings 
full,  as  the  students  are  getting  more  and 
more  in  earnest,  and  the  most  incredible 
part  of  it  is  that  the  police  are  surprised. 
They  really  thought  the  arrests  would 
frighten  the  others  from  going  on.  So 
everybody  is  getting  an  education.  This 
morning  one  of  our  friends  here  is  going  to 
take  us  up  to  the  University  to  see  the  mili- 
tary encampment,  and  I  hope  he  will  take 
us  inside  also,  though  I  hardly  think  he  will 
do  the  latter. 

As  near  as  I  can  find  out,  the  Chinese 
have  reached  that  interesting  stage  of  de- 
velopment when  they  must  do  something  for 
women  and  do  as  little  as  they  can,  but  in 
case  they  must  have  a  girls'  school  they  find 
that  a  convenient  place  to  unload  an  anti- 
quated official  who  really  can't  be  endured 
any  longer  by  real  folks. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

No  one  can  tell  to-day  what  the  students' 
strike  will  bring  next;  it  may  bring  a  revo- 
lution, it  may  do  anything  surprising  to  the 
police,  who  seem  to  be  as  lacking  in  imagina- 
tion as  police  are  famous  for  being.  Every- 
one here  is  getting  ready  to  flee  for  the 
summer,  which  is  very  hot  during  July.  On 
the  whole,  the  heat  is  perhaps  less  hard  to 
endure  than  the  heat  of  New  York,  as  it 
is  so  dry.  But  the  dryness  has  its  own  effect 
and  when  those  hard  winds  blow  up  the  dust 
storms  it  gets  on  the  nerves.  Dust  heaps 
up  inside  the  house,  and  cuts  the  skin  both 
inside  and  outside  of  the  body.  This  is  a 
lucky  day,  being  cloudy  and  a  little  damj) 
as  if  it  might  rain. 

The  Western  Hill  was  an  experience  to 
remember.  Stepping  from  a  Ford  limou- 
sine to  a  chair  carried  by  four  men  and  an 
outwalker  alongside,  we  were  thus  taken  by 
fifteen  men  to  the  temples,  your  father,  an 
officer  from  the  Department  of  Education, 
and  I.  The  men  walked  over  the  paths  in 


222    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

the  dust  and  on  stones  which  no  one  thinks 
of  picking  up.  It  was  so  astounding  to  call 
it  a  pleasure  resort  that  we  could  only  stare 
and  remain  dumh.  We  saw  three  temples 
and  one  royal  garden.  Five  hundred  Bud- 
dhas  in  one  building,  and  all  the  buildings 
tumble-down  and  dirty.  On  top  of  one  hill 
is  a  huge  building  which  cost  a  million  or 
more  to  build  about  four  hundred  years  ago 
by  someone  for  his  tomb.  Then  he  did 
something  wrong,  probably  stole  from  the 
wrong  person,  and  was  not  allowed  to  be 
buried  there.  Round  the  temple  places  the 
trees  remain  and  give  a  refreshing  oasis,  and 
there  are  some  beautiful  springs.  All  the 
time  we  kept  saying,  "Trees  ought  to  be 
planted."  "Yes,  but  they  take  so  long  to 
grow,"  or,  "Yes,  but  they  will  not  grow,  it 
is  so  dry,"  etc.  Sometimes  they  would  say, 
"Yes,  we  must  plant  some  trees,"  or  more 
likely,  "Yes,  I  think  we  may  plant  some 
trees  sometime,  but  we  have  an  Arbor 
Day  and  the  people  cut  down  the  trees  or 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    223 

else  they  did,"  We  would  show  that  the 
trees  would  grow  because  they  were  there 
round  the  temples,  and  besides  grass  was 
growing  and  trees  would  grow  where  grass 
would  grow  in  such  dry  weather,  and  they 
would  say  the  same  things  over.  It  made 
the  little  forestry  station  in  Nanking  seem 
like  a  monumental  advance,  while  that  fear- 
ful sun  was  beating  up  the  dust  under  the 
stones  as  the  men  gave  us  the  Swedish  mas- 
sage in  the  motion  of  the  chairs.  Fifty  men 
and  more  stood  around  as  we  got  in  and  out 
of  the  car  and  five  men  apiece  stood  and 
waited  for  us  as  we  walked  round  the  temple 
and  ate  our  lunch  and  spent  the  time  sip- 
ping tea,  and  yet  they  cannot  plant  trees, 
and  that  is  China. 

The  whole  country  is  covered  every  inch 
with  stones.  Nature  has  supplied  them,  and 
falling  walls  are  everywhere.  We  saw  one 
great  thing,  however.  They  are  building  a 
new  school  house  and  orphanage  for  the 
children  of  that  village.  Many  of  the  chil- 


224    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

dren  are  naked  everywhere  hereabouts  and 
they  stand  with  sunburned  heads,  their 
backs  covered  only  with  coats  of  dirt,  eating 
their  bean  food  in  the  street.  Everywhere 
the  food  is  laid  out  on  tables  by  the  road- 
side ready  to  eat.  In  one  temple,  a  certain 
official  here  has  promised  to  rebuild  a  small 
shrine  which  houses  the  laughing  Buddha, 
who  is  made  of  bronze  and  was  once  covered 
with  lacquer,  which  is  now  mostly  split  off. 
At  present  the  only  shade  the  god  has  is  a 
roof  of  mats  which  they  have  braced  up  on 
the  pile  of  ruins  that  once  made  a  roof.  The 
President  of  the  Republic  has  built  a  lovely 
big  gate  like  the  old  ones,  because  it  is  pro- 
pitious and  would  bring  him  good  fortune. 
But  he  has  decided  it  was  not  propitious, 
something  went  wrong  with  the  gods,  I  did 
not  learn  what  it  was;  anyway,  he  is  now 
tearing  down  one  of  the  big  buttresses  on 
one  side  of  it  to  see  if  fate  will  treat  him 
more  kindly  then.  Just  what  he  wants  of 
fate  I  did  not  learn  either,  but  perhaps  it 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    225 

is  that  fate  should  make  him  Emperor,  as 
that  seems  to  be  their  idea  of  curing  poverty 
and  political  evils.  I  forgot  to  say  that  they 
never  remove  ruins ;  everything  is  left  to  lie 
as  it  falls  or  is  falling,  so  one  gets  a  good 
idea  of  how  gods  are  constructed.  Most  of 
them  were  of  clay,  a  sort  of  concrete  built 
up  on  a  wood  frame,  and  badly  as  they  need 
wood  I  have  never  seen  a  sign  of  piling  up 
the  fallen  beams  of  a  temple.  Instead  of 
that,  you  risk  your  life  by  walking  under 
these  falling  roofs  unless  you  have  the  sense 
to  look  after  your  own  safety.  In  most  of 
these  Peking  temples  they  do  sweep  the 
floors  and  even  some  of  the  statues  look  as 
if  they  had  some  time  been  dusted,  though 
this  last  I  am  not  certain  about. 


226    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


PEKING,  June  5. 

As  has  been  remarked  before,  you  never 
can  tell.  The  students  were  stirred  up  by 
orders  dissolving  their  associations,  and  by 
the  "mandates"  criticising  the  Japanese 
boycott  and  telling  what  valuable  services 
the  two  men  whose  dismissal  was  demanded 
had  rendered  the  country.  So  they  got  busy 
— the  students.  They  were  also  angered 
because  the  industrial  departments  of  two 
schools  were  ordered  closed  by  the  police. 
In  these  departments  the  students  had  set 
about  seeing  what  things  of  Japanese  im- 
portation could  be  replaced  by  hand  labor 
without  waiting  for  capital.  After  they 
worked  it  out  in  the  school  they  went  out 
to  the  shops  and  taught  the  people  how  to 
make  them,  and  then  peddled  them  about, 
making  speeches  at  the  same  time.  Well, 
yesterday  when  we  went  about  we  noticed 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    227 

that  the  students  were  speaking  more  than 
usual,  and  while  the  streets  were  full  of  sol- 
diers the  students  were  not  interfered  with; 
in  the  afternoon  a  procession  of  about  a 
thousand  students  was  even  escorted  by  the 
police.  Then  in  the  evening  a  telephone 
came  from  the  University  that  the  tents 
around  the  University  buildings  where  the 
students  were  imprisoned  had  been  struck 
and  the  soldiers  were  all  leaving.  Then  the 
students  inside  held  a  meeting  and  passed  a 
resolution  asking  the  government  whether 
they  were  guaranteed  freedom  of  speech, 
because  if  they  were  not,  they  would  not 
leave  the  building  merely  to  be  arrested 
again,  as  they  planned  to  go  on  speaking. 
So  they  embarrassed  the  government  by  re- 
maining in  "jail"  all  night.  We  haven't 
heard  to-day  what  has  happened,  but  the 
streets  are  free  of  soldiers,  and  there  were  no 
students  talking  anywhere  we  went,  so  I 
fancy  a  truce  has  been  arranged  while  they 
try  and  fix  things  up.  The  government's 


228    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

ignominious  surrender  was  partly  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  places  of  detention  were  get- 
ting full  and  about  twice  as  many  students 
spoke  yesterday  as  the  day  before,  when 
they  arrested  a  thousand,  and  the  govern- 
ment for  the  first  time  realized  that  they 
couldn't  bulldoze  the  students;  it  was  also 
partly  due  to  the  fact  that  the  merchants 
in  Shanghai  struck  the  day  before  yester- 
day, and  there  is  talk  that  the  Peking  mer- 
chants are  organizing  for  the  same  purpose. 
This  is,  once  more,  a  strange  country;  the 
so-called  republic  is  a  j  oke ;  all  it  has  meant 
so  far  is  that  instead  of  the  Emperor  having 
a  steady  job,  the  job  of  ruling  and  looting 
is  passed  around  to  the  clique  that  grabs 
power.  One  of  the  leading  militarist  party 
generals  invited  his  dearest  enemy  to  break- 
fast a  while  ago — within  the  last  few  months 
— in  Peking,  and  then  lined  his  guest 
against  the  wall  and  had  him  shot.  Did  this 
affect  his  status  ?  He  is  still  doing  business 
at  the  old  stand.  But  in  some  ways  there 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    229 

is  more  democracy  than  we  have;  leaving 
out  the  women,  there  is  complete  social 
equality,  and  while  the  legislature  is  a  per- 
fect farce,  public  opinion,  when  it  does  ex- 
press itself,  as  at  the  present  time,  has  re- 
markable influence.  Some  think  the  worst 
officials  will  now  resign  and  get  out,  others 
that  the  militarists  will  attempt  a  coup 
d'etat  and  seize  still  more  power  rather  than 
back  down.  Fortunately,  the  latter  seem 
to  be  divided  at  the  present  time.  But  all 
of  the  student  (and  teacher)  crowd  are 
much  afraid  that  even  if  the  present  gang 
is  thrown  out,  it  will  be  only  to  replace  them 
by  another  set  just  as  bad,  so  they  are  re- 
fraining from  appealing  to  the  army  for 
help. 

Later. — The  students  have  now  asked 
that  the  chief  of  police  come  personally  to 
escort  them  out  and  make  an  apology.  In 
many  ways,  it  seems  like  an  opera  bouffe, 
but  there  is  no  doubt  that  up  to  date  they 
have  shown  more  shrewdness  and  policy 


230    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

than  the  government,  and  are  getting  the 
latter  where  it  is  a  laughing  stock,  which  is 
fatal  in  China.  But  the  government  isn't 
inactive;  they  have  appointed  a  new  Min- 
ister of  Education  and  a  new  Chancellor  of 
the  University,  both  respectable  men,  with 
no  records  and  colorless  characters.  It  is 
likely  the  Faculty  will  decline  to  receive  the 
new  Chancellor  unless  he  makes  a  satisfac- 
tory declaration — which  he  obviously  can't, 
and  thus  the  row  will  begin  all  over  again, 
with  the  Faculty  involved.  If  the  govern- 
ment dared,  it  would  dissolve  the  University, 
but  the  scholar  has  a  sacred  reputation  in 
China. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    231 


June  7. 

The  whole  story  of  the  students  is  funny 
and  not  the  least  funny  part  is  that  last  Fri- 
day the  students  were  speaking  and  parad- 
ing with  banners  and  cheers  and  the  police 
standing  near  them  like  guardian  angels,  no 
one  being  arrested  or  molested.  We  heard 
that  one  student  pouring  out  hot  eloquence 
was  respectfully  requested  to  move  his  audi- 
ence along  a  little  for  the  reason  that  they 
were  so  numerous  in  statu  quo  as  to  impede 
traffic,  and  the  policeman  would  not  like  to 
be  held  responsible  for  interfering  with  the 
traffic.  Meantime,  Saturday  the  govern- 
ment sent  an  apology  to  the  students  wrho 
were  still  in  prison  of  their  own  free  will 
waiting  for  the  government  to  apologize  and 
to  give  them  the  assurance  of  free  speech, 
etc.  The  students  are  said  to  have  left  the 
building  yesterday  morning,  though  we 


232    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

have  no  accurate  information.  The  Faculty 
of  the  University  met  and  refused  to  recog- 
nize or  accept  the  new  Chancellor.  They 
sent  a  committee  to  the  government  to  tell 
them  that,  and  one  to  the  Chancellor  to  tell 
him  also  and  to  ask  him  to  resign.  It  seems 
the  newly-appointed  Chancellor  used  to  he 
at  the  head  of  the  engineering  school  of  the 
University,  but  he  was  kicked  out  in  the 
political  struggle.  He  is  an  official  of  the 
Yuan  Shi  Kai  school  and  has  become  a  rich 
rubber  merchant  in  Malay,  and  anyway 
they  do  not  want  a  mere  rubber  merchant 
as  President  of  the  University,  and  they 
think  they  may  so  explain  that  to  the  new 
Chancellor  that  he  will  not  look  upon  the 
office  as  so  attractive  as  he  thought  it  was. 

There  is  complete  segregation  in  this  city 
in  all  public  gatherings,  the  women  at  the 
theaters  are  put  off  in  one  of  those  real  gal- 
leries such  as  we  think  used  to  be  and  are 
not  now.  The  place  for  the  women  in  the 
hall  of  the  Board  of  Education  is  good 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    233 

enough  and  on  one  side  facing  the  hall  so 
that  all  the  men  can  look  at  them  freely  and 
so  protect  that  famous  modesty  which  I 
have  heard  more  of  in  China  than  for  many 
years  previously. 

Gasoline  is  one  dollar  a  gallon  here  and 
a  Ford  car  costs  $1900.  Ivory  soap  five  for 
one  dollar.  Clean  your  dress  for  $2.50. 
Tooth  paste  one  dollar  a  tube,  vaseline  50 
cents  a  small  bottle.  Washing  three  cents 
each,  including  dresses  and  men's  coats  and 
shirts ;  fine  cook  ten  dollars  a  month.  They 
have  a  very  good  one  here,  and  I  am  going 
right  on  getting  fat  on  delicious  Chinese 
food.  The  new  Rockefeller  Institute,  called 
the  Union  Medical  College,  is  very  near 
here,  and  they  are  making  beautiful  build- 
ings in  the  old  Chinese  style,  to  say  nothing 
of  their  Hygiene.  They  have  just  decided 
to  open  it  to  women,  but  I  am  rather  sus- 
picious the  requirements  will  prevent  the 
women's  using  it  at  first. 

Peking  is  still  much  of  a  capital  city  and 


234    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

is  divided  into  the  diplomats  and  the  mis- 
sionaries. It  seems  there  is  not  much  lack- 
ing except  the  old  Dowager  Empress  to 
make  up  the  old  Peking. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    235 


PEKING,  June  10. 

The  students  have  taken  the  trick  and 
won  the  game  at  the  present  moment — I  de- 
cline to  predict  the  morrow  when  it  comes 
to  China.  Sunday  morning  I  lectured  at 
the  auditorium  of  the  Board  of  Education 
and  at  that  time  the  officials  there  didn't 
know  what  had  happened.  But  the  govern- 
ment sent  what  is  called  a  pacification  dele- 
gate to  the  self -imprisoned  students  to  say 
that  the  government  recognized  that  it  had 
made  a  mistake  and .  apologized.  Conse- 
quently the  students  marched  triumphantly 
out,  and  yesterday  their  street  meetings 
were  bigger  and  more  enthusiastic  than  ever. 
The  day  before  they  had  hooted  at  four  un- 
official delegates  who  had  asked  them  to 
please  come  out  of  jail,  but  who  hadn't 
apologized.  But  the  biggest  victory  is  that 


236    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

it  is  now  reported  that  the  government  will 
to-day  issue  a  mandate  dismissing  the  three 
men  who  are  always  called  traitors — yester- 
day they  had  got  to  the  point  of  offering 
to  dismiss  one,  the  one  whose  house  was  at- 
tacked by  the  students  on  the  fourth  of 
May,  but  they  were  told  that  that  wouldn't 
be  enough,  so  now  they  have  surrendered 
still  more.  Whether  this  will  satisfy  the 
striking  merchants  or  whether  they  will 
make  further  demands,  having  won  the  first 
round,  doesn't  yet  appear.  There  are  lots 
of  rumors,  of  course.  One  is  that  the  back- 
down is  not  only  due  to  the  strike  of  mer- 
chants, but  to  a  fear  that  the  soldiers  could 
no  longer  be  counted  upon.  There  was  even 
a  rumor  that  a  regiment  at  Western  Hills 
was  going  to  start  for  Peking  to  side  with 
the  students.  Rumors  are  one  of  China's 
strong  suits.  When  you  realize  that  we 
have  been  here  less  than  six  weeks,  you  will 
have  to  admit  that  we  have  been  seeing  life. 
For  a  country  that  is  regarded  at  home  as 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    237 

stagnant  and  unchanging,  there  is  certainly 
something  doing. 

This  is  the  world's  greatest  kaleidoscope. 

Wilson's  Decoration  Day  Address  has 
just  been  published;  perhaps  it  sounds  aca- 
demic at  home,  but  over  here  Chinese  at 
least  regard  it  as  very  practical — as,  in  fact, 
a  definite  threat.  On  the  other  hand,  we 
continue  to  get  tales  of  how  the  Washing- 
ton State  Department  has  declined  to  take 
the  reports  sent  from  here  as  authentic. 
Lately  they  have  had  a  number  of  special 
agents  over  here,  more  or  less  secret,  to  get 
independent  information. 

In  talking  about  democratic  develop- 
ments in  America,  whenever  I  make  a  re- 
mark such  as  the  Americans  do  not  depend 
upon  the  government  to  do  things  for  them, 
but  go  ahead  and  do  things  for  themselves, 
the  response  is  immediate  and  emphatic. 
The  Chinese  are  socially  a  very;  democratic 
people  and  their  centralized  government 
bores  them. 


238    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


June  16. 

Chinesewise  speaking,  we  are  now  having 
another  lull.  The  three  'traitors"  have  had 
their  resignations  accepted,  the  cabinet  is 
undergoing  reconstruction,  the  strike  has 
been  called  off,  both  of  students  and  mer- 
chants (the  railwaymen  striking  was  the 
last  straw),  and  the  mystery  is  what  will 
happen  next.  There  are  evidences  that  the 
extreme  militarists  are  spitting  on  their 
hands  to  take  hold  in  spite  of  their  defeat, 
and  also  that  the  President,  who  is  said  to 
be  a  moderate  and  skillful  politician,  is  nurs- 
ing things  along  to  get  matters  more  and 
more  into  his  own  hands.  Although  he 
issued  a  mandate  against  the  students  and 
commending  the  traitors,  the  students'  vic- 
tory seems  to  have  strengthened  him.  I 
can't  figure  it  out,  but  it  is  part  of  the  gen- 
eral beginning  to  read  at  the  back  of  the 


LETTERS  FROM  CITNA  AND  JAPAN    239 

book.  The  idea  seems  to  be  that  he  has 
demonstrated  the  weakness  of  the  militarists 
in  the  country,  while  in  sticking  in  form  by 
them  he  has  given  them  no  excuse  for  at- 
tacking him.  They  are  attacking  most 
everybody  else  in  anonymous  circulars.  One 
was  got  out  signed  "Thirteen  hundred  and 
fifty-eight  students,"  but  giving  no  names, 
saying  that  the  sole  object  of  the  strike  was 
to  regain  Tsingtao,  but  that  a  few  men  had 
tried  to  turn  the  movement  to  their  own 
ends,  one  wishing  to  be  Chancellor  of  the 
University. 


240    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


PEKING,  June  20. 

Some  time  ago  I  had  decided  to  tell  you 
that  here  I  had  found  the  human  duplica- 
tion of  the  bee  colony  in  actual  working 
order.  China  is  it,  and  in  all  particulars 
lives  up  to  the  perfect  socialization  of  the 
race.  Nobody  can  do  anything  alone,  no- 
body can  do  anything  in  a  hurry.  The  hunt 
of  the  bee  for  her  cell  goes  on  before  one's 
eyes  all  the  time.  When  found,  lo,  the  dis- 
covery that  the  cell  was  there  all  the  time. 
Let  me  give  you  an  example. 

We  go  to  the  art  school  for  lectures,  enter 
by  a  door  at  the  end  of  a  long  hall.  Behind 
that  hall  is  another  large  room  and  in  back 
of  the  second  room  somewhere  is  a  place 
where  the  men  make  the  tea.  Near  the  front 
door  where  we  enter  is  the  table  where  we 
are  always  asked  to  sit  down  before  and 
after  the  lecture,  whereat  we  sit  down  to 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    241 

partake  of  tea  and  other  beverages,  such 
as  soda.  Well,  the  teacups  are  kept  in  a 
cabinet  at  the  front  end  of  the  first  room 
right  near  the  entrance  door.  Comes  a 
grown  man  from  the  rear  somewhere;  si- 
lently and  with  stately  tread  he  walks  across 
the  long  room  to  the  cabinet,  takes  one  tea- 
cup in  each  hand  and  retreads  the  space 
towards  the  back.  After  sufficient  time  he 
returns  bearing  in  his  two  hands  these  cups 
filled  with  hot  tea.  He  puts  these  down  on 
the  table  for  us  and  then  he  takes  two  more 
cups  from  the  cabinet,  and  retires  once  more, 
returning  later  as  before.  When  bottles 
are  opened  they  are  brought  near  the  table, 
because  otherwise  the  soda  would  be  spoiled 
in  carrying  open,  never  to  save  steps. 

The  Chinese  kitchen  is  always  several 
feet  from  the  dining  room,  under  a  separate 
roof.  Often  you  must  cross  a  court  in  the 
open  to  get  from  one  to  another.  As  it  has 
not  rained  since  we  have  been  here,  I  do  not 
know  what  happens  to  the  soup  under  the 


242    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

umbrella.  But  remember,  the  beehive  is  the 
thing  in  China,  and  it  is  the  old-fashioned 
beehive  in  the  barrel.  When  you  look  at  the 
men  who  are  doing  it  all  they  have  the  air 
of  strong,  quiet  beings  who  might  do  almost 
anything,  but  when  you  get  acquainted  with 
them,  how  they  do  almost  nothing  is  a  mar- 
velous achievement.  At  Ching  Hua  Col- 
lege, said  being  the  famous  Boxer  Indem- 
nity College,  the  houses  are  new  and  built 
by  American  initiative,  and  the  kitchen  is 
forty  feet  from  the  dining  room  door  in 
those.  I  will  not  describe  the  kitchens,  but 
when  you  see  the  clay  stoves  crumbling  in 
places,  no  sink,  and  one  window  on  one  side 
of  the  rather  dark  room,  a  little  room  where 
the  cook  sleeps  on  a  board  and  where  both 
the  men  eat  their  own  frugal  meals,  it  is  all 
the  Middle  Ages  undisturbed. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    243 


PEKING,  June  20. 

Last  weekend  we  went  out  about  ten 
miles  to  Ching  Hua  College;  this  is  the  in- 
stitution started  with  the  returned  Boxer 
Indemnity  Fund;  it's  a  high  school  with 
about  two  years  college  work;  they  have 
just  graduated  sixty  or  seventy  who  are 
going  to  America  next  year  to  finish  up. 
They  go  all  around,  largely  to  small  colleges 
and  the  Middle  West  state  institutions,  a 
good  many  to  Tech  and  a  number  to 
Stevens,  though  none  go  to  Columbia,  be- 
cause it  is  in  a  big  city;  just  what  improve- 
ment Hoboken  is  I  don't  know.  China  is 
full  of  Columbia  men,  but  they  went  there 
for  graduate  work.  No  doubt  it  is  wise 
keeping  them  away  from  a  big  city  at  first. 
Except  for  the  instruction  in  Chinese,  the 
teaching  is  all  done  in  English,  and  the  boys 
seem  to  speak  English  quite  well  already. 


244    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

It's  a  shame  the  way  they  will  be  treated, 
the  insults  they  will  have  to  put  up  with  in 
America  before  they  get  really  adjusted. 
And  then  when  they  get  back  here  they  .have 
even  a  worse  time  getting  readjusted.  They 
have  been  idealizing  their  native  land  at  the 
same  time  that  they  have  got  Americanized 
without  knowing  it,  and  they  have  a  hard 
time  to  get  a  job'  to  make  a  living.  They 
have  been  told  that  they  are  the  future 
saviors  of  their  country  and  then  their  coun- 
try doesn't  want  them  for  anything  at  all — 
and  they  can't  help  making  comparisons 
and  realizing  the  backwardness  of  China 
and  its  awful  problems.  At  the  same  time 
at  the  bottom  of  his  heart  probably  every 
Chinese  is  convinced  of  the  superiority  of 
Chinese  civilization — and  maybe  they  are 
right — three  thousand  years  is  quite  a  spell 
to  hold  on. 

You  may  come  over  here  some  time  in 
your  life,  so  it  will  do  no  harm  to  learn 
about  the  money — about  it,  nobody  but  the 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    245 

Chinese  bankers  ever  learn  it.  There  are 
eleven  dimes  in  a  dollar  and  six  twenty-cent 
pieces,  and  while  there  are  only  eleven  cop- 
pers in  a  dime,  there  are  one  hundred  and 
thirty-eight  in  a  dollar.  Consequently  the 
thrifty  always  carry  a  pound  or  two  of  big 
coppers  with  them  to  pay  'ricksha  men  with. 
Then  there  are  various  kinds  of  paper 
money.  We  are  going  to  Western  Hills  to- 
morrow night,  and  under  instructions  I 
bought  some  dollars  at  sixty-five  cents 
apiece  which  are  good  for  a  whole  dollar  on 
this  railway  and  apparently  nowhere  else. 
On  the  contrary,  the  foreigners  are  done  all 
the  time  at  the  hotels;  there  they  only  give 
you  five  twenty-cent  pieces  in  change  for  a 
dollar,  and  so  on — but  they  are  run  by  for- 
eigners, and  not  by  the  wily  Chinese.  One 
thing  you  will  be  glad  to  know  is  that 
Peking  is  Americanized  to  the  extent  that 
we  have  ice  cream  at  least  once  a  day,  two 
big  helpings.  This  helps. 

A  word  to  the  wise.    Never  ask  a  Chinese 


246    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

whether  it  is  going  to  rain,  or  any  other 
question  about  the  coming  weather.  The 
turtle  is  supposed  to  be  a  weather  prophet, 
and  as  the  turtle  is  regarded  as  the  vilest 
creature  on  earth,  you  can  see  what  an  insult 
such  a  question  is.  One  of  their  subtle 
compliments  to  the  Japanese  during  the 
late  campaign  was  to  take  a  straw  hat,  of 
Japanese  make,  which  they  had  removed 
from  a  passerby's  head,  and  cut  it  into  the 
likeness  of  a  turtle  and  then  nail  it  up  on 
a  telephone  post. 

I  find,  by  the  way,  that  I  didn't  do  the 
students  justice  when  I  compared  their  first 
demonstration  here  to  a  college  boys'  rough- 
house;  the  whole  thing  was  planned  care- 
fully, it  seems,  and  was  even  pulled  off 
earlier  than  would  otherwise  have  been  the 
case,  because  one  of  the  political  parties  was 
going  to  demonstrate  soon,  and  they  were 
afraid  their  movement  (coming  at  the  same 
time)  would  make  it  look  as  if  they  were  an 
agency  of  the  political  faction,  and  they 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN     247 

wanted  to  act  independently  as  students. 
To  think  of  kids  in  our  country  from  four- 
teen on,  taking  the  lead  in  starting  a  big 
cleanup  reform  politics  movement  and 
shaming  merchants  and  professional  men 
into  joining  them.  This  is  sure  some 
country. 


248    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


PEKING,  June  23. 

Last  night  we  Had  a  lovely  dinner  at  the 
house  of  a  Chinese  official.  All  the  guests 
were  men  except  me  and  the  fourteen-year- 
old  daughter  of  the  house.  She  was  educated 
in  an  English  school  here  and  speaks  beauti- 
ful English,  besides  being  a  talented  and 
interesting  girl.  Chinese  girls  at  her  age 
seem  older  than  ours.  The  family  consists 
of  five  children  and  two  wives.  I  found  the 
reason  the  daughter  was  hostess  was  that  it 
was  embarrassing  to  choose  between  the  two 
wives  for  hostess  and  they  didn't  want  to 
give  us  a  bad  impression,  so  no  wife  ap- 
peared. We  were  given  to  understand  that 
the  reason  for  the  non-appearance  was  that 
mother  was  sick.  There  is  a  new  little  baby 
six  weeks  old.  The  father  is  a  delicate,  re- 
fined little  man,  very  proud  of  his  children 
and  fond  of  them,  and  they  were  all  brought 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    249 

out  to  see  us,  even  the  six  weeks  older,  who 
was  very  hot  in  a  little  red  dress.  Our  host 
is  the  leader  of  a  party  of  liberal  progress- 
ives, and  also  an  art  collector.  We  had 
hopes  he  would  show  us  his  collection  of 
things.  He  did  not,  except  for  the  lovely 
porcelain  that  was  on  the  table.  The  house 
is  big  and  behind  the  wall  of  the  Purple  City, 
as  they  call  the  old  Forbidden  City,  and  it 
looks  on  the  famous  old  pagoda,  so  it  was 
interesting.  We  sat  in  the  court  for  coffee 
and  there  seemed  to  be  many  more  courts 
leading  on  one  behind  another  as  they  do 
here,  sometimes  fourteen  or  more,  with 
chains  of  houses  around  each  one. 

As  for  the  dinner,  I  forgot  to  say  that  the 
cook  is  a  remarkable  man,  Fukien,  who  gave 
us  the  most  delicious  Chinese  cookery  with 
French  names  attached  on  the  menu.  Cook- 
ing is  apt  to  be  named  geographically  here. 
Most  everyone  in  Peking  came  from  some- 
where else,  just  as  should  be  in  a  capital 
city.  But  they  seem  to  keep  the  cooks  and 


250    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

cook  in  accordance  with  the  predelictions  of 
the  old  home  province.  They  have  adopted 
ice  cream,  showing  the  natural  sense  of  the 
race,  but  the  daughter  of  our  host  told  me 
that  they  do  not  give  it  to  the  sick,  as  they 
still  have  the  idea  that  the  sick  should  have 
nothing  cold. 

They  are  now  thrashing  the  wheat  in  this 
locality.  That  consists  of  cutting  it  with 
the  sickle  and  having  the  women  and  chil- 
dren glean.  The  main  crop  is  scattered  on 
the  floor,  as  it  is  called,  being  a  hard  piece 
of  ground  near  the  house,  and  then  the 
wheat  is  treaded  out  by  a  pair  of  don- 
keys attached  to  a  roller  about  as  big  as 
our  garden  roller.  After  it  is  out  of  the 
husk,  it  is  winnowed  by  being  tossed  in  the 
breeze,  which  takes  the  time  of  a  number 
of  people  and  leaves  in  a  share  of  the  mother 
earth.  The  crops  are  very  thin  round  this 
region  and  they  say  that  they  are  thinner 
than  usual,  as  this  is  a  drier  year  than  usual. 
Corn  is  small,  but  there  is  some  growing  be- 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    251 

tween  here  and  the  hills  where  we  went, 
always  in  the  little  pieces  of  ground,  of 
course.  Peanuts  and  sweet  potatoes  are 
planted  now,  and  they  seem  to  be  growing 
well  in  the  dust,  which  has  been  wet  by  the 
recent  day  of  rain. 


252    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


PEKING,  June  25. 

Simple  facts  for  home  consumption.  All 
boards  in  China  are  sawed  by  hand — two 
men  and  a  saw,  like  a  cross-cut  buck-saw. 
At  the  new  Hotel  de  Peking,  a  big  build- 
ing, instead  of  carrying  window  casings 
ready  to  put  in,  they  are  carrying  big  logs 
cut  the  proper  length  for  a  casing.  Spitting 
is  a  common  accomplishment.  When  a 
school  girl  wants  excuse  to  leave  her  seat  she 
walks  across  the  room  and  spits  vigorously 
in  the  spittoon.  Little  melons  are  now 
ready  to  eat.  They  come  like  ripe  cucum- 
bers, small,  rather  sweet.  Coolies  and  boys 
eat  them,  skins  and  all,  on  the  street.  Chil- 
dren eat  small  green  apples.  Peaches  are 
expensive,  but  those  who  can  get  the  green 
hard  ones  eat  them  raw.  The  potted  pome- 
granates are  now  in  bloom  and  also  in  fruit 
in  the  pots.  The  color  is  a  wonderful  scar- 


let.  The  lotus  ponds  are  in  bloom — wonder- 
ful color  in  a  deep  rose.  When  the  buds  are 
nearly  ready  to  open  they  look  as  if  they 
were  about  to  explode  and  fill  the  air  with 
their  intense  color.  The  huge  leaves  are 
brilliant  and  lovely — light  green  and  deli- 
cately veined.  But  the  lotus  was  never 
made  for  art,  and  only  religion  could  have 
made  it  acceptable  to  art.  The  sacred  ponds 
are  well  kept  and  are  in  the  old  moats  of 
the  Purple  City — Forbidden.  There  are 
twice  as  many  men  in  Peking  as  women. 

Sunday  we  went  to  a  Chinese  wedding. 
It  was  at  the  Naval  Club — no  difference  in 
appearance  from  our  ceremony.  Bride  and 
groom  both  in  the  conventional  foreign 
dress.  They  had  a  ring.  At  the  supper 
there  were  six  tables  full  of  men,  and  three 
partly  full  of  women  and  children.  Women 
take  their  children  and  their  amahs  every- 
where in  China — I  mean  wherever  they  go 
and  provided  they  want  to ;  it  is  the  custom. 
None  of  the  men  spoke  to  the  women  at  the 


254    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

wedding — except  rare  returned  students. 
Eggs  cost  $1.00  for  120 — we  get  all  we 
want  in  our  boarding  house.  Men  take 
birds  out  for  walks — either  in  cages  or  with 
one  leg  tied  to  a  string  attached  to  a  stick 
on  which  the  bird  perches. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    255 


PEKING,  June  27. 

It's  a  wonder  we  were  ever  let  out  of 
Japan  at  all.  It's  fatal;  I  could  now  tell 
after  reading  ten  lines  of  the  writings  of  any 
traveler  whether  he  ever  journeyed  beyond 
a  certain  point.  You  have  to  hand  it  to  the 
Japanese.  Their  country  is  beautiful,  their 
treatment  of  visitors  is  beautiful,  and  they 
have  the  most  artistic  knack  of  making  the 
visible  side  of  everything  beautiful,  or  at 
least  attractive.  Deliberate  deceit  couldn't 
be  one-tenth  as  effective;  it's  a  real  gift  of 
art.  They  are  the  greatest  manipulators  of 
the  outside  of  things  that  ever  lived.  I  real- 
ized when  I  was  there  that  they;  were  a  na- 
tion of  specialists,  but  I  didn't  realize  that 
foreign  affairs  and  diplomacy  were  also  such 
a  specialized  art. 

The  new  acting  Minister  of  Education  has 
invited  us  to  dinner  soon.  This  man  doesn't 
appear  to  have  any  past  educational  record, 


256    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

but  he  has  pursued  a  conciliatory  course ;  the 
other  one  resigned  and  disappeared  when  he 
found  he  couldn't  control  things.  The 
really  liberal  element  does  not  appear  to  be 
strong  enough  at  present  to  influence  poli- 
tics practically.  The  struggle  is  between 
the  extreme  militarists,  who  are  said  to  be 
under  Japanese  influence,  and  the  group  of 
somewhat  colorless  moderates  headed  by  the 
President.  As  he  gets  a  chance  he  appears 
to  be  putting  his  men  in.  The  immediate 
gain  seems  to  be  negative  in  keeping  the 
other  crowd  out  instead  of  positive,  but  they 
are  at  least  honest  and  will  probably  re- 
spond when  there  is  enough  organized  lib- 
eral pressure  brought  to  bear  upon  them. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  it  is  hot  here. 
Yesterday  we  went  out  in 'rickshas  about  the 
middle  of  the  day  and  I  don't  believe  I  ever 
felt  such  heat.  It  is  like  the  Yosemite,  only 
considerably  more  intense  as  well  as  for 
longer  periods  of  time.  The  only  consola- 
tion one  gets  from  noting  that  it  isn't  humid 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    257 

is  that  if  it  were,  one  couldn't  live  at  all. 
But  the  desert  sands  aren't  moist  either. 
Your  mother  asked  the  coolie  why(  he  didn't 
wear  a  hat,  and  he  said  because  it  was  too 
hot.  Think  of  pulling  a  person  at  the  rate 
of  five  or  six  miles  an  hour  in  the  sun  of  a 
hundred  and  twenty  or  thirty;  with  your 
head  exposed.  Most  of  the  coolies  who 
work  in  the  sun  have  nothing  on  their  heads. 
It's  either  survival  of  the  fittest  or  inheri- 
tance of  acquired  characteristics.  Their 
adaptation  to  every  kind  of  physical  discom- 
fort is  certainly  one  of  the  wonders  of  the 
world.  You  ought  to  see  the  places  where 
they  lie  down  to  go  to  sleep.  They  have  it 
all  over  Napoleon.  This  is  also  "the  country 
of  itinerant  domesticity.  I  doubt  if  lots  of 
the  'ricksha  men  have  any  places  to  sleep 
except  in  their  carts.  And  a  large  part  of 
the  population  must  buy  their  food  of  the 
street  pedlars,  who  sell  every  conceivable 
cooked  thing;  then  there  are  lots  of  cooked 
food  stores  besides  the  street  men. 


258    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


PEKING,  July  2. 

The  rainy  season  has  set  in,  and  now  we 
have  floods  and  also  coolness,  the  tempera- 
ture having  fallen  from  the  late  nineties  to 
the  early  seventies,  and  life  seems  more 
worth  living  again. 

This  is  a  great  country  for  pictures,  and 
I  am  most  anxious  for  one  of  a  middle-aged 
Chinese,  inclining  to  be  fat,  with  a  broad- 
brimmed  straw  hat,  sitting  on  the  back  of  a 
very  small  and  placid  cream  colored  donkey. 
He  is  fanning  himself  as  the  donkey  moves 
imperceptibly  along  the  highway,  is  satis- 
fied with  himself  and  at  ease  with  the  world, 
and  everything  in  the  world,  whatever  hap- 
pens. This  would  be  a  good  frontispiece 
for  a  book  on  China — and  the  joke  wouldn't 
all  be  on  the  Chinese  either. 

To-day  the  report  is  that  the  Chinese 
delegates  refused  to  sign  the  Paris  treaty; 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    259 

the  news  seems  too  good  to  be  true,  but  no- 
body can  learn  the  facts.  There  are  also 
rumors  that  the  governmental  military 
party,  having  got  everything  almost  out  of 
Japan  that  is  coining  to  them  and  finding 
themselves  on  the  unpopular  side,  are  about 
to  forget  that  they  ever  knew  the  Japanese 
and  to  come  out  very  patriotic.  This  is  also 
unconfirmed,  but  I  suppose  the  only  reason 
they  would  stay  bought  in  any  case  is  that 
there  are  no  other  bidders  in  the  market. 


260    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


PEKING,  Wednesday,  July  2. 

The  anxiety  here  is  tense.  The  report  is 
that  the  delegates  did  not  sign,  but  so 
vaguely  worded  as  to  leave  conjectures  and 
no  confirmation.  Meanwhile  the  students' 
organizations,  etc.,  have  begun  another  at- 
tack against  the  government  by  demanding 
the  dissolution  of  Parliament.  Meantime 
there  is  no  cabinet  and  the  President  can  get 
no  one  to  form  one,  and  half  those  inside 
seem  to  be  also  on  the  strike  because  the 
other  half  are  there. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    261 


PEKING,  July  4. 

We  are  going  out  to  the  Higher  Normal 
this  morning.  The  head  of  the  industrial 
department  is  going  to  take  us.  The  stu- 
dents are  erecting  three  new  school  build- 
ings this  summer — they  made  the  plans,  de- 
signs, details,  and  are  supervising  the  erec- 
tion as  well  as  doing  the  routine  carpenter 
work.  The  head  of  the  industrial  depart- 
ment, who  acted  as  our  guide  and  host,  has 
been  organizing  the  "national  industry" 
activity  in  connection  with  the  students'  agi- 
tation. He  is  now,  among  other  things,  try- 
ing to  organize  apprentice  schools  under 
guild  control.  The  idea  is  to  take  the  bright- 
est apprentice  available  in  each  "factory" 
— really,  of  course,  just  a  household  group 
— and  give  them  two  hours'  schooling  a  day 
with  a  view  to  introducing  new  methods  and 
new  products  into  the  industry.  They  are 


262    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

going  to  take  metal  working  here.  Then  he 
hopes  it  will  spread  all  over  China.  You 
cannot  imagine  the  industrial  backwardness 
here,  not  only  as  compared  with  us  but  with 
Japan.  Consequently  their  markets  here 
are  flooded  with  cheap  flimsy  Japan-made 
stuff,  which  they  buy  because  it's  cheap,  the 
line  of  least  resistance.  But  perhaps  the 
Shantung  business  will  be  worth  its  cost. 
The  cotton  guild  is  very  anxious  to  co-oper- 
ate and  they  will  supply  capital  if  the 
schools  can  guarantee  skilled  workingmen, 
especially  superintendents.  Now  they  sell 
four  million  worth  of  cotton  to  Japan, 
where  it  is  spun,  and  then  buy  back  the  same 
cotton  in  thread  for  fourteen  million — 
which  they  weave.  This  is  beside  the  large 
amount  of  woven  cotton  goods  they  import. 
I  find  in  reading  books  that  the  Awaken- 
ing of  China  has  been  announced  a  dozen  or 
more  times  by  foreign  travelers  in  the  last 
ten  years,  so  I  hesitate  to  announce  it  again, 
but  I  think  this  is  the  first  time  the  mer- 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    263 

chants  and  guilds  have  really  been  actively 
stirred  to  try  to  improve  industrial  methods. 
And  if  so,  it  is  a  real  awakening — that  and 
the  combination  with  the  students.  I  read 
the  translations  from  Japanese  every  few 
days,  and  it  would  be  very  interesting  to 
know  whether  their  ignorance  is  real  or  as- 
sumed. Probably  some  of  both — it  is  in- 
conceivable that  they  should  be  as  poor 
judges  of  Chinese  psychology  as  the  articles 
indicate.  But  at  the  same  time  they  have 
to  keep  up  a  certain  tone  of  belief  among 
the  people  at  home — namely,  that  the  Chi- 
nese really  prefer  the  Japanese  to  all  other 
foreigners;  for  they  realize  their  depend- 
ence upon  them,  and  if  they  do  not  make 
common  cause  with  them  it  is  because  for- 
eigners, chiefly  Americans,  instigate  it  all 
from  mercenary  and  political  motives.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  I  doubt  if  history  knows 
of  any  such  complete  case  of  national  dislike 
and  distrust;  it  sometimes  seems  as  if  there 
hadn't  been  a  single  thing  that  the  Japanese 


264    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

might  have  done  to  alienate  the  Chinese  that 
they  haven't  tried.  The  Chinese  would  feel 
pretty  sore  at  America  for  inviting  them 
into  the  war  and  then  leaving  them  in  the 
lurch,  if  the  Japanese  papers  and  politicians 
hadn't  spent  all  their  time  the  last  three 
months  abusing  America — then  their  sweet 
speeches  in  America.  It  will  be  interesting 
to  watch  and  see  just  what  particular  string 
they  trip  on  finally. 

It's  getting  to  the  end  of  an  Imperfect 
Day.  We  saw  the  school  as  per  program 
and  I  find  I  made  a  mistake.  The  boys 
made  the  plans  of  the  three  buildings  and 
are  supervising  their  erection,  but  not  doing 
the  building.  They  are  staying  in  school  all 
summer,  however — those  in  the  woodwork- 
ing class — and  have  taken  a  contract  for 
making  all  the  desks  for  the  new  buildings — 
the  school  gives  them  room  and  board  (food 
and  its  preparation  costs  about  five  dollars 
per  month) ,  and  they  practically  give  their 
time.  All  the  metal-working  boys  are  stay- 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    265 

ing  in  Peking  and  working  in  the  shops  to 
improve  and  diversify  the  products.  Re- 
member these  are  boys,  eighteen  to  twenty, 
and  that  they  are  carrying  on  their  propa- 
ganda for  their  country;  that  the  summer 
averages  one  hundred  in  the  shade  in  Pe- 
king, and  you'll  admit  there  is  some  stuff 
here. 

This  P.M.  we  went  to  a  piece  of  the  cele- 
bration. The  piece  we  saw  wasn't  so  very 
Fourth  of  Julyish,  but  it  was  interesting — 
Chinese  sleight  of  hand.  Their  long  robe 
is  an  advantage,  but  none  the  less  it  can't  be 
so  very  easy  to  move  about  with  a  very  large 
sized  punch  bowl  filled  to  the  brim  with 
water,  or  with  five  glass  bowls  each  with  a 
gold  fish  in  it,  ready  to  bring  out.  It  seems 
that  sometimes  the  artist  turns  a  somersault 
just  as  he  brings  out  the  big  bowl  of  water, 
but  we  didn't  get  that.  None  of  the  tricks 

[were  complicated,  but  they  were  the  neatest 
I  ever  saw.  There  is  a  home-made  minstrel 
show  to-night,  but  it  rained,  and  as  the  show 


266    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

(and  dance  later)  are  in  the  open,  we  aren't 
going,  as  we  intended. 

You  can't  imagine  what  it  means  here  for 
China  not  to  have  signed.  The  entire  gov- 
ernment has  been  for  it — the  President  up 
to  ten  days  before  the  signing  said  it  was 
necessary.  It  was  a  victory  for  public 
opinion,  and  all  set  going  by  these  little 
schoolboys  and  girls.  Certainly  the  United 
States  ought  to  be  ashamed  when  China  can 
do  a  thing  of  this  sort. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    267 


Sunday,  July  7. 

We  had  quite  another  ride  yesterday, 
sixty  or  seventy  miles  altogether.  The  rea- 
son for  the  macadam  road  is  worth  telling. 
When  Yuan  Shi  Kai  was  planning  to  be 
Emperor  his  son  broke  his  leg,  and  he  heard 
the  hot  springs  would  be  good  for  him.  So 
one  of  the  officials  made  a  road  to  it.  Some 
of  the  present  day  officials,  including  an  ex- 
official  who  was  recently  forced  to  resign 
after  being  beaten  up,  now  own  the  springs 
and  hotel,  so  the  road  will  continue  to  be 
taken  care  of.  On  the  way  we  went  through 
the  village  of  the  White  Snake  and  also  of 
the  One  Hundred  Virtues. 

Y.  M.  C.  A.'s  and  Red  Crossers  are  still 
coming  from  Siberia  on  their  way  home.  I 
don't  know  whether  they  will  talk  freely 
when  they  get  home.  It  is  one  mess,  and 
the  stories  they  will  tell  won't  improve  our 


268    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

foreign  relations  any.  The  Bolsheviki 
aren't  the  only  ones  that  shoot  up  villages 
and  take  the  loot — so  far  the  Americans 
haven't  done  it. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    269 


PEKING,  July  8. 

This  morning  the  papers  here  reported 
the  denial  of  Japan  that  she  had  made  a 
secret  treaty  with  Germany.  The  opinion 
here  seems  to  be  that  they  did  not,  but 
merely  that  preliminaries  had  begun  with 
reference  to  such  a  treaty.  We  heard  at 
dinner  the  other  day  from  responsible 
American  officials  here  that,  after  America 
had  completed  the  last  of  the  arrangements 
for  China  to  go  into  the  war,  the  Japanese 
arranged  to  get  a  concession  from  Russia 
for  the  delivery  on  the  part  of  the  Japanese 
of  China  into  the  war  on  the  side  of  the 
Allies. 

Well,  the  Japanese  are  still  at  ft  with  the 
cat  out  of  the  bag.  It  looks  now  as  if  they 
are  getting  ready  to  break  up  the  present 
government  in  Japan.  This  is  interpreted 
to  mean  that  that  breakup  will  be  made  to 


270    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

look  as  if  it  were  in  disapproval  of  the  pres- 
ent mistakes  in  diplomacy  and  of  the  price 
of  rice;  and  then  they  can  put  in  a  worse 
one  there  and  the  world  will  not  know  the 
difference,  but  will  be  made  to  think  that 
Japan  is  reforming.  Speaking  of  constitu- 
tionality in  Japan,  I  ceased  to  worry  about 
that  as  soon  as  I  learned  the  older  states- 
men never  troubled  at  all  about  who  was 
elected,  but  just  let  the  elections  go  through, 
as  their  business  was  so  assured  in  other 
ways  that  the  elections  made  no  difference 
anyway,  and  that  the  same  principle  worked 
equally  well  in  the  matter  of  passing  bills.  No 
bill  can  ever  come  up  without  the  approval 
of  the  powers  that  be  and  they  know  how 
it  is  coming  out  in  spite  of  all  discussions. 
No  wonder  change  comes  slowly  and  maybe 
it  will  have  to  come  all  at  once  in  the  form 
of  a  revolution  if  it  comes  in  reality.  It  is 
now  reported  that  Tsai,  the  Chancellor  of 
the  University  here,  has  said  he  will  come 
back  on  condition  that  the  students  do  not 


LETTERS  PROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    271 

move  in  future  in  any  political  matter  with- 
out his  consent,  and  I  am  not  able  to  guess 
whether  that  is  a  concession  or  a  clever  way 
of  seeming  to  agree  with  both  sides  at  once. 
The  announcement  of  Tsai's  return  means 
that  things  will  soon  be  back  in  normal 
shape  and  ready  for  another  upheaval. 

We  seem  to  be  utterly  stumped  by  the 
house  situation.  All  the  members  of  the 
Rockefeller  Foundation  get  nice  new  houses 
built  for  them,  and  the  houses  are  nice  new 
Chinese  ones  but  free  from  the  poor  quali- 
ties of  those  to  be  rented  here.  All  the 
houses  in  Peking  are  built  like  our  wood- 
sheds, directly  on  the  ground,  raised  a  few 
inches  from  actual  contact  with  the  earth 
by  a  stone  floor.  The  courts  fill  with  water 
when  the  rains  are  hard  and  then  they  are 
moist  for  days,  maybe  weeks,  and  about  two 
feet  of  wet  seeps  up  the  side  of  the  walls. 
Yesterday  we  called  on  one  of  our  Chinese 
friends  here,  and  the  whole  place  was  in  that 
state,  but  he  did  not  seem  to  notice  it.  If 


272    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

he  wants  baths  in  the  house  it  doubles  the 
cost  he  pays  the  water  wagon,  and  then  after 
all  the  trouble  of  heating  and  carrying  the 
water  there  is  no  way  to  dispose  of  the 
waste,  except  to  get  a  man  to  come  and 
carry  it  away  in  buckets.  You  would  have 
endless  occupation  here  just  looking  on  to 
see  how  this  bee  colony  can  find  so  many 
ways  of  making  life  hard  for  itself.  A  gen- 
tleman at  the  Foundation  has  just  been  tell- 
ing us  how  the  coolies  steal  every  little  piece 
of  metal,  leftovers  or  screwed  on,  that  they 
can  get  at.  The  privation  of  life  sets  up  an 
entirely  new  set  of  standards  for  morals. 
No  one,  it  appears,  can  be  convicted  for 
stealing  food  in  China, 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    273 


PEKING,  July  8. 

The  Rockefeller  buildings  are  lovely  sam- 
ples of  what  money  can  do.  In  the  midst 
of  this  worn  and  weak  city  they  stand  out 
like  illuminating  monuments  of  the  splen- 
dor of  the  past  in  proper  combination  with 
the  modern  idea.  They  are  in  the  finest  old 
style  of  Chinese  architecture;  green  roofs 
instead  of  yellow,  with  three  stories  instead 
of  one.  One  wonders  how  long  it  will  take 
China  to  catch  up  and  know  what  they  are 
doing.  It  is  said  the  Chinese  are  not  at  all 
inclined  to  go  to  their  hospital  for  fear  of 
the  ultra  foreign  methods  which  they  do  not 
yet  understand.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
is  no  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  Institu- 
tion to  meet  them  half  way  as  the  mission- 
aries have  always  done.  There  are  a  num- 
ber of  Chinese  among  the  doctors  and  they 
have  now  opened  all  the  work  to  the  women. 


274    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

There  is  a  great  need  for  women  doctors 
now  in  China,  but  evidently  it  will  take  a 
generation  yet  before  this  work  will  begin 
to  be  understood  and  will  take  its  natural 
place  in  Chinese  affairs.  It  is  rather  amus- 
ing that  this  splendid  set  of  buildings  quite 
surrounds  and  overshadows  the  biggest 
Japanese  hospital  and  school  that  is  in  Pe- 
king, and  they  say  the  fact  has  quite  humili- 
ated the  Japanese.  At  present  the  build- 
ings are  nearing  completion,  but  all  the  old 
rubbishy  structures  of  former  times  will 
have  to  be  pulled  down  before  these  new 
ones  can  be  seen  in  all  their  beauty.  Among 
other  things,  they  have  built  thirty-five 
houses  also  in  Chinese  style  but  with  all  the 
modern  comforts,  in  which  to  house  their 
faculty,  and  in  addition  to  those  there  are 
a  good  many  buildings  which  were  taken 
over  from  the  old  medical  missionary  Col- 
lege, besides,  perhaps,  some  that  will  be  left 
from  the  palace  of  the  Prince  whose  prop- 
erty they  bought.  Two  fine  old  lions  are  an 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    275 

addition  from  the  Prince,  but  no  foreign 
family  would  stand  the  inconveniences  and 
discomforts  of  the  ancient  Prince,  in  spite 
of  all  his  wives. 


276    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


PEKING,  July  11. 

They  have  the  best  melons  here  you  ever 
saw.  Their  watermelons,  which  are  sold  on 
the  street  in  such  quantities  as  to  put  even 
the  southern  negroes  to  shame,  are  just  like 
yellow  ice  cream  in  color,  but  they  aren't  as 
juicy  as  ours.  Their  musk  melons  aren't 
spicy  like  the  ones  at  home  at  all,  but  are 
shaped  like  pears,  only  bigger  and  have  an 
acid  taste;  in  fact  they  are  more  like  a  cu- 
cumber with  a  little  acid  pep  in  them,  only 
the  seeds  are  all  in  the  center  like  our 
melons.  When  you  get  macaroons  and  little 
cakes  here  in  straight  Chinese  houses  you 
realize  that  neither  we  nor  the  Europeans 
were  the  first  to  begin  eating.  They  either 
boil  or  steam  their  bread — they  eat  wheat 
instead  of  rice  in  this  part  of  the  country — 
or  fry  it,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  dough- 
nuts were  brought  home  to  grandma  by 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    277 

some  old  seafaring  captain.  These  things 
axe  all  the  stranger  because,  except  for 
sponge  cake,  no  such  things  are  indigenous 
to  Japan.  So  when  you  first  get  here  you 
can  hardly  resist  the  impression  that  these 
things  have  been  brought  to  China  from 
America  or  Europe.  Read  a  book  called 
"Two  Heroes  of  Cathay,"  by  Luella  Miner, 
and  see  how  our  country  has  treated  some  of 
these  people  in  the  past,  and  then  you  see 
them  so  fond  of  America  and  of  Americans 
and  you  realize  that  in  some  ways  they  are 
ahead  of  us  in  what  used  to  be  known  as 
Christianity  before  the  war.  I  guess  we 
wrote  you  from  Hangchow  about  seeing  the 
monument  and  shrine  to  two  Chinese  offi- 
cials who  were  torn  in  pieces  at  the  time  of 
the  Boxer  rebellion  because  they  changed  a 
telegram  to  the  provincial  officers  "Kill  all 
foreigners"  to  read  "Protect  all  foreign- 
ers." The  shrine  is  kept  up,  of  course,  by 
the  Chinese,  and  very  few  foreigners  in 
China  even  know  of  the  incident. 


£78    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

Their  art  is  really  childlike  and  all  the 
new  kinds  of  artists  in  America  who  think 
being  queer  is  being  primitive  ought  to  come 
over  here  and  study  the  Chinese  in  their 
native  abodes.  A  great  love  of  bright  colors 
and  a  wonderful  knowledge  of  how  to  com- 
bine them,  a  comparatively  few  patterns 
used  over  and  over  in  all  kinds  of  ways,  and 
a  preference  for  designs  that  illustrate  some 
story  or  idea  or  that  appeal  to  their  sense  of 
the  funny — it's  a  good  deal  more  childlike 
than  what  passes  in  Greenwich  Village  for 
the  childlike  in  art. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    279 


Y.  M.  C.  A.,  PEKING,  July  17. 

A  young  Korean  arrived  here  in  the  even- 
ing and  he  was  met  here  on  our  porch  by  a 
Chinese  citizen  who  is  also  Korean.  The 
newly  arrived  could  speak  very  little  Eng- 
lish and  by  means  of  a  triangle  we  were  able 
to  arrive  at  his  story.  It  seems  there  is  quite 
a  leakage  of  Korean  students  over  the  Chi- 
nese border  all  the  time.  To  become  a 
Chinese  student  requires  six  years  of  resi- 
dence, or  else  it  was  three;  anyway  enough 
to  postpone  the  idea  of  going  to  America  to 
study  till  rather  late  in  case  one  wants  to 
resort  to  that  way  of  escape  from  Japanese 
oppression.  The  elder  and  the  one  who  has 
become  a  Chinese  citizen  seemed  a  good  deal 
excited;  I  fancy  they  are  dramatic  by  na- 
ture, and  made  many  gestures.  He  urged 
on  me  the  importance  of  our  going  to  Korea 
and  he  is  going  to  bring  us  some  pictures  to 


280    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

look  at.  Well,  it  all  set  me  thinking,  and  so 
I  have  been  reading  the  Korean  guide  book 
and  reflecting  on  the  wonderful  climate 
there  and  wondering  if  we  can  get  a  rea- 
sonable place  to  stay.  My  first  discovery 
of  the  real  seriousness  of  the  Korean  situa- 
tion came  across  me  in  Japan  early  in 
March,  when  we  had  a  holiday  on  account 
of  the  funeral  of  the  Korean  prince,  for 
the  reason  that  after  the  funeral  and  grad- 
ually in  connection  with  it  the  Japanese 
Advertiser  said  it  was  rumored  that  the  old 
Korean  prince  had  committed  suicide. 
Doubtless  you  may  know  the  story  there, 
and  then  again  you  may  not.  However, 
the  facts  have  leaked  one  way  and  another 
and  now  it  is  known  that  the  old  man  did 
commit  suicide  in  order  to  prevent  the  mar- 
riage of  the  young  prince,  who  has  been 
brought  up  in  Japan,  to  the  Japanese 
princess.  By  etiquette  his  death,  taking 
place  three  days  or  so  before  the  date  set 
for  the  wedding,  prevented  the  marriage 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    281 

from  taking  place  for  two  years,  and  it  is 
hoped  by  the  Koreans  that  before  two  years 
they  could  weaken  the  Japanese  grip  on 
Korea.  We  all  know  they  have  made  a  be- 
ginning since  last  March  and  the  suicide  did 
something  to  help  that  along.  Now  that 
Japan  is  advertising  political  reforms  in 
Korea  she  would  probably  count  on  that 
reputation  again  to  cover  her  real  activities 
and  intentions  with  the  world  at  large  for 
some  time  to  come.  The  Japanese  are  like 
the  Italian  Padrones  or  other  skillful  newly 
rich;  they  have  learned  the  western  efficiency 
and  in  that  they  are  at  least  a  generation 
ahead  of  their  neighbors.  New  knowledge 
to  take  advantage  of  the  old  experience 
which  she  has  moved  away  from  and  under- 
stands so  well,  to  make  that  experience  con- 
tribute all  it  has  towards  building  up  and 
strengthening  the  new  riches  of  herself. 
The  excuse  is  the  one  of  the  short  and  easy 
road  to  success  though  in  the  long  run  it 
is  destructive  in  its  bearings.  But  a  certain 


282    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

physical  efficiency  is  what  Japan  surely  has 
and  she  has  made  that  go  a  little  further 
than  it  really  can  go.  It  is  just  one  more 
evidence  of  the  failure  of  the  Peace  Con- 
ference to  comprehend  the  excuses  that 
Wilson  is  making  for  the  concessions  he  has 
granted  to  the  practical  needs,  as  he  calls 
them.  We  are  now  getting  the  first  echoes 
from  his  speeches  here. 

When  I  reflect  on  the  changed  aspect  of 
our  minds  and  on  the  facts  that  we  have 
become  accustomed  to  gradually  since  com- 
ing here  I  realize  we  have  much  to  explain 
to  you  which  now  seems  a  matter  of  course 
over  here.  We  discovered  from  reading  an 
old  back  number  somewhere  that  an  Ameri- 
can traveler  had  been  given  the  order  of  the 
Royal  Treasure  in  Japan  when  he  was 
there.  This  order  is  said  to  be  bestowed  on 
the  Japanese  alone.  Before  he  received  it 
he  had  made  a  public  speech  to  the  effect 
that  as  China  was  down  and  out  and  needed 
some  protector  it  was  natural  that  Japan 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    283 

should  be  that,  as  by  all  historical  reasons 
she  was  fitted  to  be.  It  appears  to  be  true 
that  the  Militarists  here  who  are  causing  the 
trouble  for  China  and  who  are  able  to  hold 
the  government  on  account  of  foreign  sup- 
port have  that  idea  so  far  as  the  "natural" 
goes.  The  great  man  of  China  to-day  is 
Hsu,  commonly  known  as  Little  Hsu,  which 
is  a  good  nickname  in  English,  Little  Shoe. 
He  has  never  been  in  the  western  hemi- 
sphere and  he  thinks  it  is  better  for  China  to 
give  a  part  of  her  territory  to  the  Japanese 
who  will  help  them,  than  to  hope  for  any- 
thing from  the  other  foreigners,  who  only 
want  to  exploit  them,  and  if  once  China  can 
get  a  stable  government  with  the  aid  of  the 
Japanese  militarists,  then  after  that  she  can 
build  herself  into  a  nation.  Meantime  Lit- 
tle Shoe  has  gained  by  a  sad  fluke  in  the 
legislature  the  appointment  of  Military 
Dictator  of  Mongolia,  and  this  means  he  is 
given  full  power  to  use  his  army  for  agri- 
cultural and  any  other  enterprises  he  may 


284    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

choose.  It  means,  in  short,  tRat  he  is  abso- 
lute dictator  of  all  Mongolia  which  is  re- 
tained by  China  and  which  is  bordered  by 
Eastern  Inner  Mongolia  which  Japan  con- 
trols under  the  twenty-one  Demands  by  a 
ninety-nine-year  lease  under  the  same  abso- 
lute conditions.  These  last  few  days  since 
that  act  was  consummated,  nothing  is  hap- 
pening so  far  as  the  public  knows,  and  ac- 
cording to  friends  the  government  can  go 
on  indefinitely  here  with  no  cabinet  and  no 
responsibility  to  react  to  the  public  de- 
mands. The  bulk  of  the  nation  is  against 
this  state  of  affairs,  but  with  the  support  of 
foreigners  and  the  lack  of  organization  there 
is  nothing  to  do  but  stand  it  and  see  the 
nation  sold  out  to  Japan  and  other  grabbers. 
If  you  can  get  at  Millard's  Review,  look 
at  it  and  read  especially  the  recent  act  of  the 
Foreign  Council  which  licensed  the  press 
— I  mean  they  passed  an  Act  to  do  so.  For- 
tunately the  Act  is  not  legal  and  will  not  be 
ratified  by  the  Chinese  Council  at  Shanghai. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    285 

To  this  house  come  the  officers  of  the  Y. 
M.  C.  A.  who  are  on  the  way  home  from 
Siberia  and  other  places.  The  stories  one 
hears  here  are  full  of  horror  and  always  the 
same.  Our  men  are  too  few  to  accomplish 
anything  and  the  whole  affair  is  not  any  of 
our  business  anyway.  Anyway  the  Cana- 
dians have  a  sense  of  virtue  in  getting  out  of 
it  and  going  home,  and  well  they  may,  say  I. 
The  Japanese  have  had  70,000  there  at  least 
and  they  may  have  shipped  many  more  than 
that,  for  they  have  such  a  command  of  the 
railroads  that  there  is  no  way  of  keeping 
track  of  them.  I  believe  the  conviction  is 
they  are  taking  in  men  according  to  their 
own  judgment  of  the  case  all  the  time. 
Everybody  agrees  that  the  Japanese  sol- 
diers are  hated  by  all  the  others  and  have 
generally  proved  themselves  disagreeable, 
the  Chinese  being  thoroughly  liked. 

Meantime  the  dissatisfaction  in  Japan 
over  rice  in  particular  and  food  in  general 
is  quite  evidently  becoming  more  and  more 


286    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

acute.  And  it  is  interesting  to  read  the  in- 
terviews with  Count  Ishii  which  all  end  up 
in  the  same  way,  that  the  fear  of  Bomb- 
throwers  in  the  United  States  is  becoming  a 
yery  serious  alarm  among  all.  The  Anti- 
American  agitation  was  hard  for  us  to  un- 
derstand while  we  were  there,  but  its  mean- 
ing is  less  obscure  now.  Will  it  be  effective? 
Is  another  world  war  already  preparing? 
It  is  said  here  that  the  students  were  yery 
successful  during  the  strike  in  converting 
soldiers  to  their  ideas.  The  boys  at  the  High 
Normal  said  they  were  disappointed  when 
they  were  let  out  of  jail  at  the  University 
because  they  had  not  converted  more  than 
half  the  soldiers.  The  guards  around  those 
boys  were  changed  every  four  hours. 

It  is  raining  most  of  the  time  and  it  is 
typical  of  the  Chinese  character  that  my 
teacher  did  not  come  because  of  the  rain. 
You  have  to  remember  he  never  takes  a 
'ricksha,  though  he  might  have  looked  at  it 
that  it  was  better  to  pay  a  man  than  to  lose 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    287 

the  lesson.  The  mud  in  the  roads  here  is 
much  like  the  old  days  on  Long  Island 
hefore  the  gravel  was  put  there,  only  it  is 
softer  and  more  slippery  here,  and  the  water 
stands. 


288    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 


PEKING,  July  17. 

We  are  pleased  to  learn  that  the  Japan- 
ese censor  hasn't  detained  all  our  letters, 
though  since  you  call  them  incoherent  there 
must  be  some  gaps.  I'm  sure  we  never 
write  anything  incoherent  if  you  get  it  all. 
The  course  of  events  has  Been  a  trifle  in- 
coherent if  you  don't  sit  up  and  hold  its 
hands  all  the  time.  Since  China  didn't  sign 
the  peace  treaty  things  have  quite  settled 
down  here,  however,  and  the  lack  of  excite- 
ment after  living  on  aerated  news  for  a 
couple  of  months  is  quite  a  letdown.  How- 
ever, we  live  in  hopes  of  revolution  or  a  coup 
d'etat  or  some  other  little  incident  to  liven 
up  the  dog  days. 

You  will  Be  pleased  to  know  that  the 
University  Chancellor — see  letters  of  early 
May — has  finally  announced  that  he  will  re- 
turn to  the  University.  It  is  supposed  that 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    289 

the  Government  has  assented  to  his  condi- 
tions, among  which  is  that  the  police  won't 
interfere  with  the  students,  but  will  leave 
discipline  to  the  University  authorities.  To 
resign  and  run  away  in  order  to  be  coaxed 
back  is  an  art.  It's  too  bad  Wilson  never 
studied  it.  The  Chinese  peace  delegates  re- 
ported back  here  that  Lloyd  George  in- 
quired what  the  twenty-one  Demands  were, 
as  he  had  never  heard  of  them.  However, 
the  Chinese  hold  Balfour  as  most  respon- 
sible. In  order  to  avoid  any  incoherence  I 
will  add  that  a  Chinese  servant  informed  a 
small  boy  in  the  household  of  one  of  our 
friends  here  that  the  Chinese  are  much  more 
cleanly  than  the  foreigners,  for  they  have 
people  come  to  them  to  clean  their  ears  and 
said  cleaners  go  way  down  in.  This  is  an 
unanswerable  argument. 

I  hear  your  mother  downstairs  engaged 
on  the  fascinating  task  of  trying  to  make 
Chinese  tones.  I  may  tell  you  that  there 
are  only  four  hundred  spoken  words  in 


290    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

Chinese,  all  monosyllables.  But  each  one  of 
these  is  spoken  in  a  different  tone,  there 
being  four  tones  in  this  part  of  the  country 
and  increasing  as  you  go  south  till  in  Canton 
there  are  twelve  or  more.  In  writing  there 
are  only  214  radicals,  which  are  then  com- 
bined and  mixed  up  in  all  sorts  of  ways. 
My  last  name  here  is  Du,  my  given  name  is 
Wei.  The  Du  is  made  up  of  two  characters, 
one  of  which  means  tree  and  the  other  earth. 
They  are  written  separately.  Then  Wei  is 
made  up  of  some  more  characters  mixed  up 
together,  one  character  for  woman  and  one 
for  dart,  and  I  don't  know  what  else.  Don't 
ask  me  how  they  decided  that  earth  and  tree 
put  together  made  Du,  for  I  can't  tell. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    291 


PEKING,  July  19. 

I  met  the  tutor,  the  English  tutor,  of  the 
young  Manchu  Emperor,  the  other  day — he 
has  three  Chinese  tutors  besides.  He  teaches 
him  Math.,  Sciences,  etc.,  besides  English, 
which  he  has  been  doing  for  three  months. 
It  is  characteristic  of  the  Chinese  that  they 
not  only  didn't  kill  any  of  the  royal  family, 
but  they  left  them  one  of  the  palaces  in  the 
Imperial  City  and  an  income  of  four  million 
dollars  Mex.  a  year,  and  within  this  palace 
the  kid  who  is  now  thirteen  is  still  Emperor, 
is  called  that,  and  is  waited  upon  by  the 
eunuch  attendants  who  crawl  before  him  on 
their  hands  and  knees.  At  the  same  time  he 
is,  of  course,  practically  a  prisoner,  being 
allowed  to  see  his  father  and  his  younger 
brother  once  a  month.  Otherwise  he  has  no 
children  to  play  with  at  all.  There  is  some 
romance  left  in  China  after  all  if  you  want 


292    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

to  let  your  imagination  play  about  this 
scene.  The  tutors  don't  kneel,  although  they 
address  him  as  Your  Majesty,  or  whatever 
it  is  in  Chinese,  and  they  walk  in  and  he 
remains  standing  until  the  tutor  is  seated. 
This  is  the  old  custom,  which  shows  the 
reverence  in  which  even  the  old  Tartars 
must  have  held  education  and  learning.  He 
has  a  Chinese  garden  in  which  to  walk,  hut 
no  place  to  ride  or  for  sports.  The  tutor  is 
trying  to  get  the  authorities  to  send  him  to 
the  country,  let  him  have  playmates  and 
sports,  and  also  abolish  the  eunuch — but  he 
seems  to  think  they  will  more  likely  abolish 
him.  The  kid  is  quite  bright,  reads  all  the 
newspapers  and  is  much  interested  in  poli- 
tics, keeps  track  of  the  Paris  Conference, 
knows  about  the  politicians  in  all  the  coun- 
tries, and  in  short  knows  a  good  deal  more 
about  world  politics  than  most  boys  of  his 
age;  also  he  is  a  good  classical  Chinese 
scholar.  The  Chinese  don't  seem  to  worry 
at  all  about  the  boy's  becoming  the  center  of 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    293 

Intrigue  and  plots,  but  I  imagine  they  sort 
of  keep  him  in  reserve  with  the  idea  that 
unless  the  people  want  monarchy  back  he 
never  can  do  anything,  while  if  they  do  let 
him  back  it  will  be  the  will  of  heaven. 

I  am  afraid  I  haven't  sufficiently  im- 
pressed it  upon  you  that  this  is  the  rainy 
season.  It  was  impressed  upon  us  yester- 
day afternoon,  when  the  side  street  upon 
which  we  live  was  a  flowing  river  a  foot  and 
a  half  deep.  The  main  street  on  which  the 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  building  is  situated  was  a  solid 
lake  from  housewall  to  housewall,  though 
not  more  than  six  inches  or  so.  But  the 
street  is  considerably  wider  than  Broadway, 
so  it  was  something  of  a  sight.  Peking  has 
for  many  hundred  years  had  sewers  big 
enough  for  a  man  to  stand  up  in,  but  they 
don't  carry  fast  enough.  Probably  about 
this  time  you  will  be  reading  cables  from 
some  part  of  China  about  floods  and  the 
number  of  homeless.  The  Yellow  River 
is  known  as  the  curse  of  China,  so  much 


294    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

damage  is  done.  We  were  told  that  when 
the  missionaries  went  down  to  do  flood  relief 
work  a  year  or  so  ago,  they  were  so  busy 
that  they  didn't  have  time  to  preach,  and 
they  did  so  much  good  that  when  they  were 
through  they  had  to  put  up  the  bars  to  keep 
the  Chinese  from  joining  the  churches  en 
masse.  We  haven't  heard,  however,  that 
they  took  the  hint  as  to  the  best  way  of 
doing  business.  These  floods  go  back 
largely  if  not  wholly  to  the  policy  of  the 
Chinese  in  stripping  the  forests.  If  you 
were  to  see  the  big  coffins  they  are  buried 
in  and  realize  the  large  part  of  China's  scant 
forests  that  must  go  into  coffins  you  would 
favor  a  law  that  no  man  could  die  until  he 
had  planted  a  tree  for  his  coffin  and  one 
extra. 

One  of  our  new  friends  here  is  quite  an 
important  politician,  though  quite  out  of  it 
just  now.  He  told  a  story  last  night 
which  tickled  the  Chinese  greatly.  The 
Japanese  minister  here  haunted  the  Presi- 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    295 

dent  and  Prime  Minister  while  the  peace 
negotiations  were  on,  and  every  day  on  the 
strength  of  what  they  told  him  cabled  the 
Tokyo  government  that  the  Chinese  dele- 
gates were  surely  going  to  sign.  Now  he  is 
in  a  somewhat  uncomfortable  position  mak- 
ing explanations  to  the  home  government. 
He  sent  a  representative  after  they  didn't 
sign  to  the  above-mentioned  friend  to  ask 
him  whether  the  government  had  been  fool- 
ing him  all  the  time.  He  replied  No,  but 
that  the  Japanese  should  remember  that 
there  was  one  power  greater  than  the  gov- 
ernment, namely,  the  people,  and  that  the 
delegates  had  obeyed  the  people.  The  Jap- 
anese will  never  be  able  to  make  up  their 
minds  though  whether  they  were  being  de- 
liberately deceived  or  not.  The  worst  of  the 
whole  thing,  however,  is  that  even  intelli- 
gent Chinese  are  relying  upon  war  between 
the  United  States  and  Japan,  and  when 
they  find  out  that  the  United  States  won't 
go  to  war  just  on  China's  account,  there 


296    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

will  be  some  kind  of  a  revulsion.  But  if 
the  United  States  had  used  its  power  when 
the  war  closed  to  compel  disarmament  and 
get  some  kind  of  a  just  settlement,  there 
would  be  no  limit  to  its  influence  over  here. 
As  it  is,  they  infer  that  the  moral  is  that 
Might  Controls,  and  that  adds  enormously 
to  the  moral  power  of  Japan  as  against  the 
United  States.  It  is  even  plainer  here  than 
at  home  that  if  the  United  States  wasn't 
going  to  see  its  "ideals"  through,  it 
shouldn't  have  professed  any,  but  if  it  did 
profess  them  it  ought  to  have  made  good  on 
'em  even  if  we  had  to  fight  the  whole  world. 
However,  our  financial  pressure,  and  the 
threat  of  withholding  food  and  raw  ma- 
terials would  have  enabled  Wilson  to  put 
anything  over. 

Another  little  incident  is  connected  with 
the  Chancellor  of  the  University.  Although 
he  is  not  a  politician  at  all,  the  Militarist 
party  holds  him  responsible  for  their  recent 
trials  and  the  student  outbreaks.  So,  al- 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    297 

though  it  announced  that  the  Chancellor 
is  coming  back,  the  Anfu  Club,  the  parlia- 
mentary organization  of  the  militarists,  is 
still  trying  to  keep  him  out.  The  other  night 
they  gave  a  banquet  to  some  University  stu- 
dents and  bribed  them  to  start  something. 
At  the  end  they  gave  each  one  dollar  extra 
for  'ricksha  hire  the  next  day,  so  there  would 
be  no  excuse  for  not  going  to  the  meeting 
at  the  University.  Fifteen  turned  up,  but 
the  spies  on  the  other  side  heard  something 
was  going  on  and  they  rang  the  bell,  col- 
lected about  a  hundred  and  locked  the 
bribees  in.  .Then  they  kept  them  in  till  they 
confessed  the  whole  story  (and  put  their 
names  to  a  written  confession)  and  turned 
over  their  resolutions  and  mimeographed 
papers  which  had  been  prepared  for  them 
in  which  they  said  they  were  really  the  ma- 
jority of  the  students  and  did  not  want  the 
Chancellor  back,  and  that  a  noisy  minority 
had  imposed  on  the  public,  etc.  The  next 
day  the  Anfu  papers  told  about  an  awful 


298    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

riot  at  the  University,  and  how  a  certain 
person  had  instigated  and  led  it,  although 
he  hadn't  been  at  the  University  at  all  that 
day. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    299 


PEKING,  July  24. 

We  expect  to  go  to  Manchuria,  probably 
in  September,  and  in  October  to  Shansi, 
which  is  quite  celebrated  now  because  they 
have  a  civil  governor  who  properly  devotes 
himself  to  his  job,  and  they  are  said  to  have 
sixty  per  cent  or  more  of  the  children  in 
school  and  to  be  prepared  for  compulsory 
education  in  1920.  It  is  the  ease  with  which 
the  Chinese  do  these  things  without  any  for- 
eign assistance  which  makes  you  feel  so 
hopeful  for  China  on  the  one  hand,  and 
so  disgusted  on  the  other  that  they  put 
up  so  patiently  with  inefficiency  and  graft 
most  of  the  time.  There  seems  to  be  a 
general  impression  that  the  present  situa- 
tion cannot  continue  indefinitely,  but  must 
take  a  turn  one  way  or  another.  The  stu- 
dent agitation  has  died  down  as  an  active 
political  thing  but  continues  intellectually. 


800    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

In  Tientsin,  for  example,  they  publish  sev- 
eral daily  newspapers  which  sell  for  a  cop- 
per apiece.  A  number  of  students  have 
been  arrested  in  Shantung  lately  by  the 
Japanese,  so  I  suppose  the  students  are 
actively  busy  there.  I  fancy  that  when  va- 
cation began  there  was  quite  an  exodus  in 
.that  direction. 

I  am  told  that  X ,  our  Japanese 

friend,  is  much  disgusted  with  the  Chinese 
about  the  Shantung  business — that  Japan 
has  promised  to  return  Shantung,  etc.,  and 
that  Japan  can't  do  it  until  China  gets  a 
stable  government  to  take  care  of  things,  be- 
cause their  present  governments  are  so  weak 
that  China  would  simply  give  away  her  terri- 
tory to  some  other  power,  and  that  the  Chi- 
nese instead  of  attacking  the  Japanese  ought 
to  mind  their  own  business  and  set  their  own 
house  in  order.  There  is  enough  truth  in  this 
so  that  it  isn't  surprising  that  so  intelligent 

and  liberal  a  person  as  X is  taken  in  by 

it.    But  what  such  Japanese  as  he  cannot 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    301 

realize,  because  the  truth  is  never  told  to 
them,  is  how  responsible  the  Japanese  gov- 
ernment is  for  fostering  a  weak  and  unrep- 
resentative government  here,  and  what  a 
temptation  to  it  a  weak  and  divided  China 
will  continue  to  be,  for  it  will  serve  indefi- 
nitely as  an  excuse  for  postponing  the  re- 
turn of  Shantung — as  well  as  for  interfer- 
ing elsewhere.  Anyone  who  knows  the  least 
thing  about  not  only  general  disturbances 
in  China  but  special  causes  of  friction  be- 
tween China  and  Japan,  can  foresee  that 
there  will  continue  to  be  a  series  of  plausible 
excuses  for  postponing  the  return  promised 
— and  anyway,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  what  she 
has  actually  promised  to  return  compared 
with  the  rights  she  would  keep  in  her  pos- 
session amount  to  little  or  nothing.  Just 
this  last  week  there  was  a  clash  in  Man- 
churia and  fifteen  or  twenty  Japanese  sol- 
diers are  reported  killed  by  Chinese — there 
will  always  be  incidents  of  that  kind  which 
will  have  to  be  settled  first.  If  the  other 


302    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

countries  would  only  surrender  their  special 
concessions  to  the  keeping  of  an  interna- 
tional guarantee,  they  could  force  the  hand 
of  Japan,  hut  I  can't  see  Great  Britain  giv- 
ing up  Hong  Kong.  On  the  whole,  how- 
ever, Great  Britain,  next  to  us,  and  barring 
the  opium  business,  has  been  the  most  decent 
of  all  the  great  powers  in  dealing  with 
China.  I  started  out  with  a  prejudice  to 
the  contrary,  and  have  been  surprised  to 
learn  how  little  grabbing  England  has 
actually  done  here.  Of  course,  India  is  the 
only  thing  she  really  cares  about  and  her 
whole  policy  here  is  controlled  by  that  con- 
sideration, with  such  incidental  trade  ad- 
vantages as  she  can  pick  uj>. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    303 


[(Later)  July  27. 

I  think  I  wrote  a  while  back  about  a 
little  kid  five  years  old  or  so  who  walked 
up  the  middle  aisle  at  one  of  my  lectures 
and  stood  for  about  fifteen  minutes  quite 
close  to  me,  gazing  at  me  most  seriously  and 
also  wholly  unembarrassed.  Night  before 
last  we  went  to  a  Chinese  restaurant  for 
dinner,  under  the  guardianship  of  a  friend 
here.  A  little  boy  came  into  our  coop  and 
began  most  earnestly  addressing  me  in  Chi- 
nese. Dur  friend  found  out  that  he  was 
asking  me  if  I  knew  his  third  uncle.  He 
was  the  kid  of  the  lecture  who  had  recog- 
nized me  as  the  lecturer,  and  whose  third 
uncle  is  now  studying  at  Columbia.  If  you 

meet  Mr.  T congratulate  him  for  me  on 

his  third  nephew.  The  boy  made  us  several 
calls  during  the  evening,  all  equally  serious 
and  unconstrained.  At  one  he  asked  me  for 


304    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

«> 

my  card,  which  he  carefully  wrapped  up  in 
ceremonial  paper.  The  restaurant  is  near 
a  lotus  pond  and  they  are  now  in  their  full- 
est bloom.  I  won't  describe  them  beyond 
saying  that  the  lotus  is  the  lotus  and  advis- 
ing you  to  come  out  next  summer  and  see 
them. 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    305 


PEKING,  August  4. 

I  went  to  Tientsin  to  an  educational  con- 
ference for  two  days  last  week.  It  was  called 
by  the  Commissioner  of  this  Province  for  all 
the  principals  of  the  higher  schools  to  dis- 
cuss the  questions  connected  with  the  open- 
ing of  the  schools  in  the  fall.  Most  of  the 
heads  of  schools  are  very  conservative  and 
were  much  opposed  to  the  students'  strikes, 
and  also  to  the  students'  participation  in 
politics.  They  are  very  nervous  and  timor- 
ous about  the  opening  of  the  schools,  for 
they  think  that  the  students  after  engaging 
in  politics  all  summer  won't  lend  themselves 
readily  to  school  discipline — their  high 
schools,  etc.,  are  all  boarding  schools — and 
will  want  to  run  the  schools  after  having  run 
the  government  for  several  months.  The 
liberal  minority,  while  they  want  the  stu- 


306    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

dents  to  settle  down  to  school  work,  think 
that  the  students'  experiences  will  have  been 
of  great  educational  value  and  that  they  will 
come  back  with  a  new  social  viewpoint,  and 
the  teaching  ought  to  be  changed — and  also 
the  methods  of  school  discipline — to  meet 
the  new  situation. 

I  had  a  wonderful  Chinese  lunch  at  a  pri- 
vate high  school  one  day  there.  The  school 
was  started  about  fifteen  years  ago  in  a  pri- 
vate house  with  six  pupils;  now  they  have 
twenty  acres  of  land,  eleven  hundred  pupils, 
and  are  putting  up  a  first  college  building 
to  open  a  freshman  class  of  a  hundred  this 
fall — it's  of  high  school  grade  now,  all  Chi- 
nese support  and  management,  and  non- 
missionary  or  Christian,  although  the  prin- 
cipal is  an  active  Christian  and  thinks 
Christ's  teachings  the  only  salvation  for 
China.  The  chief  patron  is  a  non-English 
speaking,  non-Christian  scholar  of  the  old 
type — but  with  modern  ideas.  The  princi- 
pal said  that  when  three  of  them  two  years 


LETTKRS  PROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    307 

ago  went  around  the  world  on  an  educa- 
tional trip,  this  old  scholar  among  them,  the 
United  States  Government  gave  them  a 
special  secret  service  detective  from  New- 
York  to  San  Francisco,  and  this  man  was 
so  impressed  with  the  old  Chinese  gentleman 
that  he  said:  "What  kind  of  education  can 
produce  such  a  man  as  that,  the  finest  gen- 
tleman I  ever  saw.  You  western  educated 
gentlemen  are  spoiled  in  comparison  with 
him."  They  certainly  have  the  world  beat 
in  courtesy  of  manners — as  much  polite- 
ness as  the  Japanese  but  with  much  less 
manner,  so  it  seems  more  natural.  How- 
ever, this  type  is  not  very  common.  I  asked 
the  principal  what  the  effect  of  the  mission- 
ary teaching  was  on  the  Chinese  passivity 
and  non-resistance.  He  said  it  differed  very 
much  as  between  Americans  and  English 
and  among  Americans  Between  the  older 
and  the  younger  lot.  The  latter,  especially 
the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  Have  given  up  the  non- 
interventionalist  point  of  view  and  take  the 


308    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

ground  that  Christianity  ought  to  change 
social  conditions.  The  Y.  M.  C.  A.  is,  he 
says,  a  group  of  social  workers  rather  than 
of  missionaries  in  the  old-fashioned  sense — 
all  of  which  is  quite  encouraging.  Perhaps 
the  Chinese  will  be  the  ones  to  rejuvenate 
Christianity  by  dropping  its  rot,  wet  and 
dry,  and  changing  it  into  a  social  religion. 
The  principal  is  a  Teachers  College  man 
and  one  of  the  most  influential  educators  in 
China.  He  speaks  largely  in  picturesque 
metaphor,  and  I'm  sorry  I  can't  remember 
what  he  said.  Among  other  things,  in 
speaking  of  the  energy  of  the  Japanese  and 
the  inertia  of  the  Chinese,  he  said  the  former 
were  mercury,  affected  by  every  change 
about  them,  and  the  latter  cotton  wool  that 
the  heat  didn't  warm  and  cold  didn't  freeze. 
He  confirmed  my  growing  idea,  however, 
that  the  conservatism  of  the  Chinese  was 
much  more  intellectual  and  deliberate,  and 
less  mere  routine  clinging  to  custom,  than 
I  used  to  suppose.  Consequently,  when 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    309 

their  ideas  do  change,  the  people  will  change 
more  thoroughly,  more  all  the  way  through, 
than  the  Japanese. 

It  seems  that  the  present  acting  Minister 
of  Education  was  allowed  to  take  office  under 
three  conditions — that  he  should  dissolve  the 
University,  prevent  the  Chancellor  from  re- 
turning, and  dismiss  all  the  present  heads 
of  the  higher  schools  here.  He  hasn't  heen 
able,  of  course,  to  accomplish  one,  and  the 
Anfu  Club  is  correspondingly  sore.  He  is 
said  to  be  a  slick  politician,  and  when  he  has 
been  at  dinner  with  our  liberal  friends  he 
tells  them  how  even  he  is  calumniated — peo- 
ple say  that  he  is  a  member  of  the  Anfu 
Club. 

I  struck  another  side  of  China  on  my  way 
home  from  Tientsin.  I  was  introduced  to 
an  ex-Minister  of  Finance  as  my  traveling 
companion.  He  is  a  Ph.D.  in  higher  math, 
from  America,  and  is  a  most  intelligent 
man.  But  his  theme  of  conversation  was 
the  need  of  a  scientific  investigation  of 


310    LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

spirits  and  spirit  possession  and  divination, 
etc.,  in  order  to  decide  scientifically  the  ex- 
istence of  the  soul  and  an  overruling  mind. 
Incidentally  he  told  a  fine  lot  of  Chinese 
ghost  stories.  Aside  from  the  coloring  of 
the  tales  I  don't  know  that  there  was  any- 
thing especially  Chinese  about  them.  He 
certainly  is  much  more  intelligent  about  it 
than  some  of  our  American  spiritualists. 
But  the  ghosts  were  certainly  Chinese  all 
right — spirit  possession  mostly.  I  suppose 
you  know  that  the  walls  that  stand  in  front 
of  the  better-to-do  Chinese  houses  are  there 
to  keep  spirits  out — the  spirits  can't  turn  a 
corner,  so  when  the  wall  is  squarely  in  front 
of  the  location  of  the  front  door  the  house 
is  safe.  Otherwise  they  come  in  and  take 
possession  of  somebody — if  they  aren't 
comfortable  as  they  are.  It  seems  there  is 
quite  a  group  of  ex-politicians  in  Tientsin 
who  are  much  interested  in  psychical  re- 
search. Considering  that  China  is  the 
aboriginal  home  of  ghosts,  I  can't  see  why 


LETTERS  FROM  CHINA  AND  JAPAN    311 

the  western  investigators  don't  start  their 
research  here.  These  educated  Chinese 
aren't  credulous,  so  there  is  nothing  crude 
about  their  ghost  stories. 


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